Te .est.: is published annually by the Historical Association of Southern Florida
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Source Document

Stronghold of the Straits
A SHORT HISTORY OF FORT ZACHARY TAYLOR
By AMES W. WILLIAMS

The art of fortification is as old as man's instinctive quest for security.
Each rising civilization has made its contribution of techniques, but from
the walls of Jericho to the Siegfried Line the objective has remained the same.
The history of the New World is inextricably bound up with the stories of
the citadels erected by its settlers. The early forts in what is now the United
States, with notable exceptions like Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine,
Florida, were usually temporary structures which, after serving a particular
need, were allowed to fall into decay.
The Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 conclusively proved the
inadequacy of existing defenses. With little or no opposition, the British
were able to seize strategic harbors and use them as effective bases for land
operations. This obvious weakness, contrasted with the stubborn and suc-
cessful defense of the city of Baltimore made by Fort McHenry against the
combined land and water attacks of the British, convinced American military
strategists of the importance of strong permanent fortifications.
The resulting brick and mortar concept of defense inspired the initial
construction and in some instances the repair of a great chain of maritime
bastions of which the crumbling and largely forgotten Fort Zachary Taylor
at Key West, Florida, was a single link.
In drafting plans for an elaborate system of fixed coastal fortifications
following the war with Great Britain, the United States in 1816 engaged
the professional services of Simon Bernard, a brilliant French military engi-
neer and former staff officer of the Emperor Napoleon. Gen. Bernard and
Col. Joseph G. Totten, later Chief of Engineers, after making an extensive
study of the eastern maritime frontier, submitted a joint report containing
specific recommendations for the protection of each important sea approach.

TEQUESTA

Due to petty jealousies within the Corps of Engineers concerning Gen.
Bernard's prerogatives, his association was apparently an unhappy one. He
resigned his commission in 1831 and returned to France. The work, however,
went on under the persevering and competent direction of Col. Totten who
may be regarded as the principal architect of the string of imposing fortifi-
cations which still stands a silent but impotent watch along the Atlantic and
Gulf coasts from Maine to Louisiana.
Because of Florida's extensive shore line, assumed to lack deep-water
harbors, no consideration had been given to any project south of the St.
Mary's River or east of Pensacola Bay. The tactical gap in the contemplated
system was recognized in 1836 by Col. Totten who urged Congress to approp-
riate three million dollars for fortifications at Key West and the Dry Tortugas
in addition to funds for certain other Florida undertakings. Strong works at
these places, he felt, would insure the protection of the Florida straits and at
the same time deny their harbors to enemy vessels.
Until 1821 Key West, or Cayo Hueso as the Spaniards named it origi-
nally, had been a notorious rendezvous for pirates and freebooters. Follow-
ing its cession to the United States, Commodore David Porter routed the
"brethren of the coast" and established a naval station on this small island
at the tip of the great Florida reef. Piracy gave way to wrecking, a profitable
profession which flourished for some years until a chain of government light-
houses was built to guide mariners safely along the treacherous reef.
Although Key West had been garrisoned by various military detachments
since 1830, no site for a permanent fortification was selected until the autumn
of 1844. At that time an inspection was made by Capt. J. G. Barnard, an
able assistant to Col. Totten who later distinguished himself in the Civil War
as Chief Engineer of the Army of the Potomac and designer of the ring of
fortifications protecting the city of Washington.
Capt. Barnard wrote to the Chief of Engineers in December 1844 that
the southwest point of Key West Island would be the most strategic location
for a strong work. He recommended a square structure of native stone with
two tiers, each containing twenty-four bomb-proof gun chambers, or case-
mates, surmounted by sixteen barbette platforms.
Following the customary procedure, a board of engineer officers consist-
ing of Maj ors William H. Chase and William D. Fraser and Captains Henry
Brewerton and George Dutton was selected in January 1845 to survey the site
proposed by Capt. Barnard and make specific findings. The report of this
board more or less concurred with Barnard's recommendations except for
suggesting that the size of the work and armament be increased.

AMES W. WILLIAMS

At the approved site, approximately sixty-three acres commanding the
junction of the four ship channels leading into the harbor were chosen for
the military reservation. The modest sum of $15,954.61 expended for its
purchase proved to be the smallest part of the ultimate cost of the installation.
On the basis of accumulated field information, plans for the fort at Key
West were drawn up in the Office of the Chief of Engineers under the personal
direction of Col. Totten.
The castle, or main defensive work, was to be built in the form of a trap-
ezoid, some 1,000 feet offshore upon submarine foundations. Each of the
three seaward curtains, or walls, was to extend approximately 255 feet in
length and the gorge, or land face, 495 feet. At each salient angle where the
curtains joined, a bastion containing flank casemates was planned to allow
howitzer fire to sweep the walls in the event of an attempt at escalade. The
curtains were to be five feet thick, except for the gorge, and rise in height
some fifty feet above high water. The entire structure was to be built of
concrete, faced with hard-burned brick and granite rather than the previously
proposed island stone.
The gorge, containing three floors of living quarters for the garrison and
the sally port, was to be protected from land bombardment by a huge cover-
face, or embankment, of sand retained in place by masonry, likewise resting
on underwater foundations. Between the castle and coverface was to be a
30-foot moat spanned by a drawbridge. A temporary pier capable of quick
destruction was to link the coverface with the shore. The armament of the
castle was to be mounted in two tiers of casemates and along the terreplein,
or top, of each curtain.
Construction began in June 1845 under the able direction of Capt. George
Dutton, Corps of Engineers. Temporary quarters were first erected to house
the many workmen supplied by the various engineer agencies. The majority
of artisans and mechanics were immigrant Irish and Germans recruited by
the New York agency fresh upon their arrival from Europe. The back-
breaking labor, for the most part, was furnished by Key West slaves hired
out under contract by their masters. Mrs. Stephen R. Mallory, whose hus-
band was later to become Confederate Secretary of the Navy, was among the
local citizens who found such an arrangement profitable.
The hours of labor were long and the scale of pay was remarkably low
as compared to today's standards. Shortly after taking command Capt. Dut-
ton announced that "Until further notice the hours of labor on the Public
Works at this place will be as follows viz.: From 7 A.M. until Noon and

TEQUESTA

from 1 P.M. until Sunset." The pay accounts show that master masons, car-
penters and blacksmiths received about four dollars a day; stone cutters,
painters and apprentices somewhat less. Laborers, including Negro slaves,
were paid a little better than one dollar a day. In the case of the latter, of
course, their owners received the compensation.
The foundation for the massive structure, a complicated grillage of
cypress ties and girders, was laid upon bed rock in about eleven feet of
water which first necessitated the building of breakwaters and cofferdams.
Huge granite blocks imported by schooner from New England served as
facing for the foundation. The ashlar facing was carried sixteen feet above
normal high water to allow for rough seas and buffeting by storms.
On October 11, 1846, a violent hurricane struck Key West, wrecking
Capt. Dutton's wharf, storage sheds and barracks. Breakwaters were carried
away and large quantities of equipment damaged. So severe was the storm
that it demolished the Government lighthouse on Whitehead Point and un-
roofed the Marine Hospital.
In spite of this damage which set his construction schedule back almost
a year, Capt. Dutton pushed forward with great energy. To fill his urgent
need for a competent assistant, Lt. Masillon A. Harrison was ordered to Key
West in March 1847. With a war beyond the horizon and hence a possibil-
ity of promotion, the assignment proved too dull for the young lieutenant.
Harrison asked for and soon received orders to join Gen. Winfield Scott's
army in Mexico where he was attached to the staff of Chief Engineer Robert
E. Lee.
The maintenance of an adequate supply of brick was a constant source
of anxiety, not only to Capt. Dutton but to his many successors. Bricks from
Danvers, New York and Ponchartrain were tried but the oversized, rose variety
made by Abercrombie and Raiford at Mobile and Pensacola was preferred for
its strength and weathering qualities. Production by this firm, however, never
seemed over-zealous and this limitation coupled with shipping difficulties
often forced a suspension of work or the use of inferior substitutes. Occas-
ionally the supply of granite from Maine and Vermont fell behind. In July
1848 Capt. Dutton was granted leave to find a new source, which he did near
New London, Connecticut.
During his eight-year tour of duty at Key West, Dutton submitted a de-
tailed memoir to the Chief of Engineers setting forth his own plan of forti-
fications for the island. He envisaged five Martello towers, each mounting a
32-pounder gun and an 8-inch seacoast howitzer en barbette and containing

AMES W. WILLIAMS

machicolations, or loopholes, for protected small arms fire. A curt acknowl-
edgement rewarded Capt. Dutton's gratuitous efforts. His plan was filed away
and forgotten.
Sufficient progress had been made by October 8, 1850 to prompt the War
Department to name the rising work Fort Zachary Taylor in honor of the
President and hero of the Mexican War.
When, in May 1853, Capt. Jeremiah M. Scarritt assumed command of
Fort Taylor, the walls had risen well above the embrasures of the first tier
of casemates and the cisterns for storing rain water were about complete.
Bricks, as usual, were in short supply and the masons could not turn the
arches in the first tier galleries. Asa Tift, an enterprising Key West merchant,
agreed to help and diverted his vessel to hauling brick across the Gulf.
In June 1854, the first of a series of yellow fever epidemics visited the
construction camp. Of the many stricken with the disease, fifteen died in-
cluding Capt. Scarritt. Until another officer could be found, the Chief of
Engineers ordered Lt. Horatio G. Wright from nearby Fort Jefferson, simul-
taneously under construction in the Dry Tortugas, to assume temporary charge
at Key West.
Lt. Wright was notified on September 22 that a shipment of ordnance
was on its way to Fort Taylor. Within a few days 50 8-inch columbiads,
33,000 pounds of powder and 500 shot arrived from the Baton Rouge arsenal.
The Washington arsenal sent the casemate carriages for the 8-inch smooth-
bores and Fort Monroe contributed 1,200 8-inch shells. The work was not
ready to receive the guns or to store the powder properly. Nevertheless, by
the exercise of ingenuity, Lt. Wright managed to get the guns and ammunition
under temporary cover.
Maj. William H. Chase, later to serve the Confederacy as a major
general, next assumed responsibility for the building of Fort Taylor. He
arrived in Key West under strict injunction to have the first tier of casemates
ready and the guns mounted by the first of the coming year. The construc-
tion of a 15-foot hot shot furnace was also to be given high priority.
Maj. Chase was a competent, though temperamental, engineer. Many
features of the structure did not conform with his opinions and he pressed
for numerous changes and alterations. The Chief of Engineers at last bluntly
wrote that the design of Fort Taylor was a settled one, meeting his and the
Board's full approval, and it was Maj. Chase's duty to adhere to it.
The Key West Barracks at this time were occupied by a company of the
First Artillery under the command of Capt. Israel Vogdes. A dispute arose

TEQUESTA

between Chase and Vogdes as to whether the former's superior rank would
entitle him to command should an emergency arise. The question being
resolved in favor of the sensitive Maj. Chase, amicable relations between the
two officers were restored.
Not until April was the first tier of casemates finished, with the guns
emplaced therein. In the interim, however, the 24-pounder howitzers had
arrived and had likewise been put into place for action.
With summer approaching, concern over the possibility of yellow fever
manifested itself among the workers. As a measure of reassurance the War
Department authorized the employment of a local physician, Dr. S. F. Jones,
at a monthly salary of one hundred and fifty dollars. His position could not
be considered a sinecure since, in addition to his professional services, he
was required to perform general clerical duties.
Considerable apprehension was felt in Washington over the lack of
attention being given to the coverface, and in an effort to accelerate its erec-
tion Col. Totten dispatched Lt. Cyrus B. Comstock and ten enlisted men of
Company A, Corps of Engineers, to Key West. Until this time, all those
employed at Fort Taylor, except for the officers in charge, had been civilians.
Maj. Chase, whose attitude toward his assignment had never been sympa-
thetic, was relieved on December 15, 1955, by Maj. William D. Fraser, a
young engineer officer with a distinguished record in the Mexican War. By
May of the following year the castle walls were finished and some progress
had been made in setting the coverface foundations.
Early in July, Maj. Fraser was directed, in the event of an outbreak of
yellow fever, to leave the island, taking with him the enlisted detachment of
sappers and miners. These orders, however, came too late. "Yellow Jack"
had already struck down more than thirty workers. Maj. Fraser contracted
the dread disease on the 25th and died two days later.
Desultory work continued throughout the summer and fall under the
direction of Chief Clerk Felix Senac and Draughtsman James C. Clapp, Lt.
Comstock having been relieved of his assignment before the July epidemic
while on temporary duty at Washington. Clapp augmented his salary of
three dollars a day by making sketches of the town of Key West. These were
lithographed in Boston and Paris and are highly esteemed today by print
collectors of the American scene.
Maj. John Sanders, assigned to Fort Taylor on August 28, 1856, did not
relish this fever-ridden post and made strenuous efforts to have his orders

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Source Document

A MES W. WILLIAMS

changed. Evidently he failed to pull the right wires and December found
him on the way to Key West accompanied by his assistant, Bvt. Lt. Miles D.
McAlester.
In spite of the interruptions of storms and pestilence, work on the fort
continued. During the winter the living quarters within the castle, intended
to house four companies of artillery, were raised and the vaulting of the
second tier of casemate arches was completed. The foundations of the cover-
face were being put into place, the parade was being filled and the cisterns
readied for use.
An ample supply of pure drinking water was an important requirement
on the island, the clouds being the only source of supply. Until a few years
ago the inhabitants of Key West were entirely dependent upon cisterns to
collect their needs and to carry them through the dry seasons which recurred
regularly.
Problems of command at Key West arose in the spring of 1857. McAlester
was relieved on April 16. By the end of the month Sanders was in Washing-
ton where, on May 7, he was ordered by the Secretary of War to Fort Delaware
for duty. Chief of Engineers Totten protested the Secretary's action in cir-
cumventing his authority and called Maj. Sanders to account, but evidently
Sanders' influence at court was sufficient to make the transfer effective.
Capt. Daniel P. Woodbury, supervising the work on Fort Jefferson in the
Tortugas, some seventy miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, was called upon to
look after the work on Fort Taylor until another officer could be found for
the task.
Meanwhile, Draughtsman Clapp, still at his post during the summer,
sent the Chief of Engineers the unpleasant news on September 10 that yellow
fever was again present on the island. As a result of a previous order by
Col. Totten to suspend unnecessary work and grant leaves of absence to all
who could be spared during the summer and fall months, most of those
susceptible to the disease had left and the tragedy of earlier epidemics was
averted.
Late in the year, Col. Totten discovered the man for the Key West job
in Lt. Edward B. Hunt, then an assistant in the building of Fort Adams at
Newport, Rhode Island. Hunt was in Charleston, South Carolina, in Decem-
ber 1857 hiring a new crew of workmen for Fort Taylor. The dangers of the
job had raised the pay scale; master masons were now offered five dollars
a day. From Charleston, Hunt proceeded to Key West where by Christmas
the work was under way in a manner that pleased the critical eye of Col.

TEQUESTA

Totten. The magazines in the fort were completed and the ammunition was
removed from temporary storage ashore.
In January 1858, Hunt requested an ordnance sergeant to care for the
guns already mounted. His energetic endeavors to secure laborers took him
far afield and evoked a complaint from Senator S. R. Mallory to the Secretary
of War. Apparently, masters of slaves in Key West were taking advantage
of a scarce local labor market to demand more than Hunt would pay. Congres-
sional pressure brought the inevitable result: the conscientious officer was
told to give preference in the future to the hiring of Key West slaves.
The usual problem of maintaining an adequate supply of building
materials beset Hunt who found it necessary to visit the brickyards at Pensa-
cola and Mobile to speed up deliveries. Because of the climate it was diffi-
cult to keep a sufficient supply of cement and lime on hand without running
the risk of spoilage. Taking advantage of the seasonal lull in operations
brought on by the yellow fever threat, Hunt, now advanced to the rank of
captain, spent the summer in New England and New York procuring mate-
rials for the next year's construction. He returned to the island in late
November with the hope of a constant flow of supplies and a full crew of
workers. A Dr. Whitehurst joined his staff in the dual role of surgeon and
bookkeeper at the salary of $150.00 per month.
Annual appropriations by Congress varied from 75 to 150 thousands
of dollars. The original estimate of completing the work for less than a
million dollars had long since been exceeded and the fort was still far from
completion. By March of 1859 the castle drawbridge was in place and work
on the coverface was proceeding rapidly. A narrow-gauge railroad was
built from the castle wharf to the south beach in order to haul sand and
coral fill.
A recapitulation of Capt. Hunt's report covering his activities for the
past two seasons is impressive. The second and barbette tiers of the channel
curtains were about complete. The earth filling of the parapet was in place
and the concrete covering layer from breast height to the scarp was formed
around the entire circuit of the castle. The main arch roofs of the whole
work had been asphalted. The terreplein was entirely filled and the foun-
dations for all columbiad platforms had been laid. The magazines were
ready. The soldiers' quarters were under roof and some of the third story
rooms plastered. A large lagoon of stagnant water adjacent to the workmen's
quarters had been drained and surrounded by a dike to prevent its refilling
in the future.

AMES W. WILLIAMS

The winter of 1859 and the spring of 1860 were devoted to the comple-
tion of the castle and to mounting the barbette guns. The soldiers' quarters
within the fort were finished sufficiently for occupancy. A sanitary system
was installed, a temporary bakery built and other arrangements made to
accommodate a garrison.
To add to Capt. Hunt's trials in the now hectic days, several pathetic
cargoes of captured slave ships were put ashore in Key West and the United
States Marshal attempted to have the Negroes quartered in Fort Taylor. The
fear of disease prompted quick refusal. In justification of his position, Hunt
wrote to the Chief of Engineers, in part:
"If permanent barracoons are to be established at Key West for
recaptured Africans, a lot should be procured for the purpose and a
building properly arranged in anticipation of arrivals. The use of
any part of the Fort grounds for this purpose is quite objectionable
on sanitary and disciplinary grounds. The landing of sick Africans
in the midst of a force of unacclimated men would introduce new
dangers beyond those of climate.
"So far as Fort Taylor is concerned, it is much to be hoped that
its hospitalities will not be taxed and that it may be freed from the
prospect of being flooded with wild Africans."
The gathering war clouds inspired appeals by Hunt to Washington for
additional funds and a stronger working force. Since the coverface was
far from completion, the gorge of the fort was vulnerable to attack from
land. Capt. J. M. Brannon, commanding the detachment of the First Artillery
stationed at the Key West Barracks, shared Hunt's anxiety over this situation
and endeavored to enlist support from his superior officers.
All efforts were now directed toward readying the fort for a surprise
attack. Windows on the gorge front were bricked up, leaving loop holes
for small arms. The drawbridge was ironed and embrasures were cut
through the gorge to permit the mounting of 8-inch columbiads facing the
shore. Temporary gun carriages were placed on the gorge terreplein to
accommodate four more such guns and a number of siege mortars.
Excitement accompanying the tense political situation on the mainland
had been communicated to Key West, but Capt. Hunt wrote early in January
1861 that he so far had been unmolested. Construction was progressing well
and he was ready for any emergency. The mechanics and laborers were
exhibiting a loyal spirit and had volunteered to defend the fort should the
need arise. Further improvisitations on the gorge had now brought eleven

TEQUESTA

8-inch columbiads and a number of howitzers to bear upon the shore. The
soldiers' quarters were ready and a number of the casemates had been con-
verted into living quarters.
Since the Key West Barracks were located at some distance from the
fort and a surprise attack could prevent the troops from reaching the castle,
Capt. Brannon on January 21 moved his command, along with the civilian
workers, into the fort's protected confines. A week later, Lt. Walter McFar-
land was assigned to assist Hunt at Fort Taylor.
Capt. Hunt expressed considerable concern over the lack of strong naval
support. At the same time he voiced some doubt as to the loyalties of a Capt.
Moffitt, commanding the vessel Crusader about to depart from Key West,
since Moffitt had once declared publicly that he would not interfere with any
expedition directed against Fort Taylor. Explaining that Moffitt was bound
to Charleston by close associations, Hunt suggested that a tribute from high
authority might be helpful in holding a valuable naval officer to his duty.'
In a message from Capt. Hunt to the Chief of Engineers on February 7,
1861, the matter of loyalties again came up:
"I am inclined to think, from all I can learn, that the town of
Key West has quite as many men who are loyal, if they can be sus-
tained' as otherwise and moreover secession seems to be losing
ground. They are mostly governed by ideas of interest and if they
are convinced that secession will not be the winning side, they will
forget that secession ever had any advocates here. . I believe
the town is really glad that Fort Taylor is saved from seizure, but
some think they must show great indignation. I have come in for a
large share of brave talk behind my back, chiefly because I made
haste on Sunday last month to break down the wharf and batten up
the fort thief-tight, but of course I do not care much for this, espe-
cially as it belongs to the lower stratum. The social atmosphere is
much tinctured by these commotions, but this is an easily excited
community and will rapidly change with the wind."
Just three days earlier, however, on February 4, 1861, Florida repre-
sentatives met with those of five other southern states at Montgomery, Ala-
bama, to form the Confederate Government. On March 3, Brig. Gen. P. G. T.
Beauregard took command of the Confederate troops at Charleston. By
this time all Federal forts in the seceding states had been seized without
resistance except Forts Pickens, Jefferson and Taylor in Florida and Fort
Sumter in Charleston harbor, South Carolina.
1 Moffitt subsequently resigned and, on Nov. 8, 1861, accepted appointment as a lieuten-
ant in the Conferedate Navy.

AMES W. WILLIAMS

At 4:30 a. m. on April 12, Confederate batteries opened fire on Fort
Sumter and the war began. Capt. Hunt, who had been commended earlier
for his devotion to duty and his preparation for the defense of Fort Taylor,
was provided with a Navy signal book and instructed to keep in daily com-
munication with the vessels in the Gulf Squadron by means of flag hoists.
The Chief of Engineers urged that work on the coverface of the castle
be speeded and dispatched fourteen additional gravel cars to Key West to-
gether with a supply of railroad iron for extension of the tracks. A spur
line of the railroad had already been run to the naval coal dock to expedite
fueling of ships assigned to the blockade patrol.
On May 4, Hunt was informed that further defenses, outside Fort Taylor,
were under consideration and that instructions would be forthcoming shortly.
In Washington the neglected memoir submitted by Capt. Dutton some seven
or eight years before had been resurrected from the archives and, with num-
erous modifications, was about to be adopted.
Plans and directions for erecting two permanent advanced towers on
Key West Island were forwarded to Capt. Hunt on August 14. The towers
were to be identical in construction, 56 feet square and 36 feet high, and were
to be located on the approximate sites where their remains now stand, the
first about a mile and a half and the second about three and a half miles from
Fort Taylor. Within the 10-foot square central piers of each was to spiral
a circular staircase with cast iron treads. The seaward walls of the towers
were to be 8' 4" thick at the bottom, with the land faces only 5' 4". The
foundations and all the superstructure were to be of concrete except for
facings and interior arches.
The lower floors were each to contain a mess room, kitchen, closets,
privies, magazine and filling rooms. The second floors, sustained by groined
arches and wrought iron girders, were each to include a barracks room to
accommodate sixty soldiers and three rooms for officers. The arches over
the second floors, some semi-circular and some semi-elliptical in shape, were
to rise six feet from imposts eight feet above the floor. From the second
story of each tower, a light drawbridge 10 feet long and 6 feet wide, raised
and lowered by pullies without gearing, was to connect with a short platform
extending from the counterscarp gallery.
Each counterscarp, covered by a glacis, or earthen slope, would contain
eight casemates of reverse fire for 24-pounder flanking howitzers, designed to
sweep the tower faces of any hostile forces attempting to cross the moat or

TEQUESTA

scale the glacis. The lower floor of each tower at the northeast angle would
communicate with the counterscarp casemates by means of a caponiere, or
covered way, notched with loopholes to provide light and ventilation. To
protect the seafronts of the towers from escalade, a moat or ditch 20 feet
wide and a partial earthern coverface about 16 feet high and 10 feet thick
at the top were to be prepared.
The terreplein of each tower was to mount four heavy barbette guns or
rifles on center pintle mounts permitting a 90-degree traverse. Each face of
the terreplein parapet, about 12 feet thick, was to have a projecting and
covered machicoulis to allow downward small arms fire or the dropping of
grenades upon an enemy reaching the base of the tower.
Communication between the sets of reverse-fire casemates and the cov-
ered ways leading to the towers was to be maintained by means of counter-
scarp galleries formed of short casemates, each containing a loophole and
a ventilator under the key of the arch.
The only access to each of the towers from beyond the glacis could
be had by ascending the 27-foot slope and descending through a cut therein to
the counterscarp parapet. Entrance to the towers could then only be effected
by means of the drawbridges to the parapet level. The glaces were to be
carried far enough around the water faces of the towers to protect them from
land batteries.
The tower terrepleins, in addition to supporting the principal armament,
were to provide the means of supplying fresh water to the garrisons. A
complex network of gutters was to trap rain water and conduct it to large
cisterns to be built in the foundations of the towers. To ensure the health
of the garrisons, elaborate sewerage and ventilation systems were devised.
Loophole windows on all sides of the towers would admit light and air to
the interiors. The kitchens were to have large fireplaces and the living quar-
ters Franklin stoves.
These advanced towers designed by Totten, who by now was a brigadier
general, were to differ substantially from their Corsican prototype whose
name through mistaken usage they would come to bear. The true Martello
tower was a circular, rather than a square, structure supporting a barbette
platform with one or two guns. Furthermore, it was devoid of any outwork,
glacis or ditch. The stout resistance offered by the original tower in Martello
Bay against an English fleet in 1794 so gained the admiration of the British
that a string of seventy-four similar works was erected along the Channel
coast between the years 1805 and 1810 to meet the threat of a French assault.

AMES W. WILLIAMS

The design was well known to American military engineers and Martello
towers were erected, among other places, at James Island, in Charleston har-
bor, South Carolina, Tybee Island, Georgia, and Proctorsville, Louisiana.
An examination of the illustrations of each type of tower will readily show
the structural differences.

Capt. Hunt was directed to obtain the sites and begin construction
immediately, extending the railroad from Fort Taylor to facilitate the trans-
portation of building materials. The towers were to be built simultaneously
and as rapidly as possible with the proviso that if the erection of Tower No.
2 (the present West Tower) should retard the construction of Tower No. 1
(the present East Tower), work on the former should be moderated since
the more distant Tower No. I was regarded to be slightly more vital to the
defense of the island. At the same time Capt. Hunt was admonished not to
slacken his efforts toward completing the coverface for Fort Taylor proper.*
To lighten the burdens of his distant subordinate, Gen. Totten ordered the
New York Engineer Agency to procure and immediately ship 500,000 of the
best common bricks available as well as a substantial cargo of cement.
The task facing Capt. Hunt was prodigious. A major and continuing
problem was the increasing shortage of laborers due to the influx of occupa-
tion troops and extensive naval activity. As this problem became more acute,
contraband Negroes from Louisiana and South Carolina were shipped to Key
West by the hundreds. Another setback to Hunt was the loss of his assistant,
Lt. McFarland. Col. Brown, who now commanded the Key West Barracks,
peremptorily re-assigned McFarland, and another officer could not be sent
to take his place.
In November Gen. Totten asked what progress had been made on the
advanced towers. The report returning from Key West was discouragingly
concise-nothing. The sites had not even been secured, since the owners of
the land were away and, when located with difficulty, had to be dealt with
in due, but tedious, legal course in absentia. Totten's reply to this was equally
terse-take possession and begin work immediately.
The harassed Capt. Hunt countered in turn with a request to be relieved
and at the same time implored his friend, Gen. McClellan, to find a place
for him with the army in the field. Apparently his request found favor; his
former assistant, Lt. McFarland, was again ordered to construction duties
* Prior to transfer, Hunt recommended that Tower No. 1 be named in honor of George
Dutton, and Tower No. 2 for William D. Fraser. No official notice has ever been taken
of this suggestion.

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at Key West on January 23, 1862. Hunt, a persevering and conscientious
officer who had found time during his trying duties to design a counterpoise
gun carriage and other ordnance devices, met death less than a year later. He
was killed in an accidental explosion at Brooklyn Navy Yard while trying to
perfect a torpedo for the Navy.
McFarland, despite difficulties in being released from field service, took
over his Key West assignment in March. Only a few days after relieving
Capt. Hunt, he learned that in addition to his duties in Key West he would
also assume charge of the construction of Fort Jefferson.
In mid-April of 1862, Gen. Totten wrote Lt. McFarland that since work
on the two advanced towers had not progressed as evenly as originally con-
templated, the West Tower, nearest the fort, having been built first, the official
designations should be changed. The West Tower thus became Tower No. 1
and the East work Tower No. 2, counting from Fort Taylor proper. Totten
explained that the occupation of the advanced sites by works capable of
some resistance was now deemed so important that the War Department
directed the completion of the towers without the benefit of covering works.
Still following the recommendations of the Dutton memoir, McFarland
was told that the erection of two more towers might he ordered, one on Flem-
ings Key and the other on Stock Island. These, upon order, were to be built
exactly as the Key West towers except for covering casemate batteries on the
sea approaches rather than ditches or glaces. Similar supporting works were
to be substituted at Towers 1 and 2. The order for the construction of the
additional towers was never to be given.
Since pressure had now lessened, Lt. McFarland was directed to begin
the casemated batteries at once. Each structure was to contain two tiers of
fourteen casemates mounting 8-or 10-inch columbiads. The seafront curtain
was to be about 186 feet in length and each flank 36 feet. The scarp walls
were to be five feet thick and the over-all height of the work thirty-seven feet.
Barbette armament was omitted since such weapons were to be mounted on
the towers.
A wet ditch six feet deep and eight feet wide was to be dug in front of
each casemate battery and extend around the flanks to meet the glacis of the
tower counterscarp. The galleries connecting the casemates of each tier
were to be groin vaulted and paved with heavy flagstone. Living quarters
for officers and men were to be provided in the flanks, and an interior pas-
sageway was to connect the lower tier with the counterscarp casemates.

AMES W. WILLIAMS

Exterior stairways would lead to a balcony upon which the second tier of
casemates opened.
Like the tower, each battery was to contain a large cistern for drinking
water and an elaborate drainage and sewerage system to carry away wastes.
To illustrate the careful nature of the planning: privy vault ventilators were
to be only a half a brick from the kitchen fireplace flues in order that the
air in the vents would become heated and continually rise.
In July 1862, a virulent epidemic of yellow fever swept through Key
West, exacting a heavy toll. Panic seized the construction camps and only
by large daily rations of whiskey and quinine were the men persuaded to
remain. The town was then filled with unacclimated men. Quarters at
Fort Taylor and Key West Barracks bulged. Near these establishments were
temporary camps into which hundreds of contraband Negroes who had been
brought in to work on the fortifications were crowded. Under the circum-
stances it is not surprising that the disease claimed many victims. Of the 448
men garrisoning Fort Taylor, 331 contracted yellow fever between July and
October; 71 of the cases were fatal. More than half of the civilian laborers
and mechanics were stricken and of this group 30 died.
While writing a report of the desperate situation on July 31, McFarland
was stricken. Luckily he recovered, but his debility was so great that his
letter to Gen. Totten remained unfinished until September 10.
Every means then favored by medical science was employed to abate the
pestilence. A pall of smoke from burning tar barrels hung over the barracks.
Cannon boomed intermittently in an effort to dispel the miasma supposedly
responsible for the disease. Physicians were divided in their opinions as to
the cause and cure of the malady. Some supposed that it was imported from
Cuba. Others felt that it was a local phenomenon. Assistant Surgeon
Cornick, attached to Fort Taylor, was convinced that the pools of stagnant
water and rotting vegetation disturbed while clearing the land for the forti-
fications played an important role. He likewise attributed some blame to the
intolerable stench which arose when some three hundred graves of a Negro
burial ground were opened to clear the site for the West Tower.
Mosquitoes, unfortunately, were regarded more as a nuisance than a
menace. Dr. Cornick's journal contains a now significant note that mosquito
bites on patients in the first or febrile stage of yellow fever caused strange
purple purpura-like spots.
The contemporary treatment of yellow fever, as practiced by the Army
in Key West, called for hot mustard baths and liberal doses of calomel,

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castor oil and spirits of nitre. Should the victim be lucky enough to survive
the dreaded second or black vomit phase, recovery usually followed.
A welcome leave of absence was granted to McFarland in October,
along with a commendation from his chief for keeping the vital work going
despite the epidemic. Labor continued on the Key West fortifications under
the direction of civilian overseers.
Since the North controlled the seas, uninterrupted shipments of building
materials and supplies continued to arrive at the Fort Taylor wharf. The
railroad daily shunted brick and cement to the rising advanced towers on
the south beach and returned with tons of sand and rock to be poured into
the coverface. Ordnance, including new rifled guns, arrived from time to
time, some pieces to be mounted in the castle of Fort Taylor and others for
transshipment to Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas.
Shortly after he returned to Key West from leave, McFarland was trans-
ferred to Hilton Head, South Carolina, where plans were being made to
retake Fort Sumter from the Confederates into whose hands it had fallen
almost two years before. Before Gen. Gillmore's campaign against the
defenses of Charleston got underway, however, McFarland was again sent
back to duty at Fort Taylor.
The civilian supervisors were unable to cope with the many problems
before them. Laborers were fewer than ever and with the yellow fever season
approaching, the mechanics, like migratory birds, were flying north with
every ship that would carry them. Gen. Banks sent three hundred Negroes
from Louisiana to bolster McFarland's thinning ranks in May. The next
month, Lt. Asa H. Holgate, Corps of Engineers, was sent fresh from the
Military Academy to assist him.
McFarland's apparent respite was short. In addition to his duties at
Key West and the Tortugas he was soon given the extra responsibility of
inspecting and reporting on construction progress at Fort Clinch, an unfin-
ished fortification far to the north at Fernandina, Florida, which for a brief
period had fallen into the possession of the Confederates.
After rising to the rank of captain, McFarland attempted to have his
family brought to Key West but the request was denied by the War Depart-
ment. His brother John, however, a civilian, joined him in Key West and
found employment as an overseer on the fortifications.
By November of 1863, four center-pintle mounts for 100-pounder Parrott
rifles had been placed on the terrepleins of both advanced towers and the

AMES W. WILLIAMS

howitzers for which they had been designed. On the negative side, the
counterscarp reverse-fire casemates were ready to receive the 24-pounder
ditches before the towers or the glaces covering the counterscarp galleries
had not yet been built, nor had the casemated batteries before the towers
progressed beyond the soles, or bases, of the second tier of embrasures.
With the possibility of European intervention and consequently the
danger of naval attack increasing, the Chief of Engineers, now Gen. Richard
Delafield, directed that every effort be made to finish the casemate batteries
and ready them for action. It was fortunate that this threat did not material-
ize, since construction efforts at this time rapidly declined. Epidemics,
labor and material shortages because of diversions to more important theatres
of war and boredom had sapped the morale of the garrison and construction
camps.
Capt. McFarland, desiring to improve his situation, requested transfer
to the field. Failing in this, he accepted a commission as Lieutenant Colonel
of Volunteers and Assistant Adjutant General of the 13th Army Corps. While
traveling to his new post, he received an ultimatum from the Chief of En-
gineers-either to resign from the Engineers or get back to Key West.
McFarland chose the latter and on September 8 again resumed charge at
Fort Taylor and Fort Jefferson.
Work went on sporadically at Key West throughout the remainder of the
war, interrupted occasionally by visitations of yellow fever and hurricanes.
On November 3, 1866, Capt. McFarland was ordered to suspend con-
struction at Key West of all masonry casemate fronts exposed to the direct
fire of a hostile fleet.
This order marked the finish of the brick and mortar concept of defense.
It was actually an anticlimax. The end had come some four years earlier
at Cockspur Island near Savannah, Georgia, when a 71/-foot thick masonry
wall of Fort Pulaski was reduced to a pile of rubble by Gen. Quincy Adams
Gillmore's 64- and 84-pounder James rifles. As the report of that event
discerningly put it:
"The result of this bombardment must cause a change in the
construction of fortifications as radical as that foreshadowed in
naval architecture by the conflict between the Monitor and Merrimac.
No works of stone or brick can resist the impact of rifled artillery
of heavy calibre."
No effort was ever made to modernize the unfinished advanced towers.
Through the intervening years, the West Tower has almost disappeared. A

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portion of the central concrete pier and a section of the counterscarp gallery
remains, used until recently as an art gallery. The East Tower, somewhat
remote, has fared better, standing today, with some deterioration, almost as
the workmen left it. The preservation of this relic of military architecture
seems assured by the efforts of the Key West Art and Historical Society which
has leased the structure from the Federal Government for operation as a
museum and art gallery.
Just before the war with Spain in 1898, Fort Taylor was cut down to
the first tier of casemates and the south curtain filled in with concrete to
accommodate heavy 12-inch disappearing rifles, 8-inch mortars, and 15- and
36-pounder rapid-fire guns. Into the concrete fill for these installations were
dumped many of the rusting columbiads, howitzers and Parrott rifles which
had been mounted in the castle during the sixties. Accretion over the years
has built up the beach where the castle, including the unfinished coverface,
is now an integral part of the shore line.
Fort Taylor, augmented by sand batteries and modern ordnance, continued
as an active coast artillery installation through World War II. With the
abolition of the Coast Artillery Corps in 1947, Fort Taylor was transferred
to the Navy and the Key West Barracks sold to a housing project as surplus
property.
Thus, after a century of occupation, the Army has withdrawn from
Key West and Gen. Totten's proud but untested stronghold has become a
warehouse to service the busy Naval Station adjoining it.

Miami: From Frontier to Metropolis:

An Appraisal
By F. PAGE WILSON

The certainty with which Mrs. Julia D. Tuttle and others foresaw a great
city on the shores of Biscayne Bay must have been based on intuition rather
than precedent. Isolated and remote, that wilderness of sand and rock and
tough but rampant vegetation offered no chance for bonanza crops; no need
for some great center to arise for their care and transportation. Nor was there
sign of gold or other value for the miner or of raw material for the manu-
facturer. When Flagler decided on a railroad and a city, his old associates
jeered. None of the usual reasons for either did they see nor could they
imagine any other.
Yet it is here that a city has arisen, known throughout the world, a metro-
politan area which, for its age, is the largest in the United States. Los Ange-
les of course has a population far greater; but Miami did not start until much
later. Since then, its percentage of growth has been even larger than that of
its phenomenal big sister.
Naturally under such circumstances, many questions arise. How and why
this rapid growth and what type of economy has been evolved to support it?
There came a time indeed when friends up-state, hopelessly puzzled by what
they saw, declared there was no such thing as economics on the Southeast
coast.
There was, of course. Economics still held sway, but its basis was a little
different. For a clearer view of what happened, let us go back to beginnings,
to the pioneers who, long before the railroad, lived in the Biscayne Bay coun-
try because they liked it despite deficiencies and hardships. They liked its
sunshine and pure clean ozone-laden breeze, its warmth in winter, its oppor-
tunities for sailing, swimming, fishing, for outdoor work and play throughout
the year. This, they were sure, was a climate so different from others, so
healthful and benign, that thousands some day would come there to live.
This, as time would show, was an economic factor of highest importance, based
on a difference; a community attracted by the way of life possible in a cli-
mate of that type.

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The region's power to draw population by virtue of qualities inherent in
itself is its great basic resource, the very corner-stone of its economy. Its
story is the story of this migration, sometimes in crowds beyond all reason;
of how, against great odds, large outlying areas were brought to use for add-
ed living space; of how, with the natural unfolding of that economy, it evol-
ved new factors to keep pace with rising needs.
A few of those early residents had private means. Others made a meager
living by hunting 'coons, alligators and other creatures of the wild; still others
by making starch out of koonti, a cycad they dug up in the pinewoods there-
abouts. Farming was the big X, potentially favored but, as yet, done only
on the smallest scale because of the wild terrain and transport difficulties. One
great advantage this land did have: of being able to produce crops at seasons
impossible to other parts of the country and some crops which these could
not grow at all. Given good quick transportation, the high prices for such
produce could be expected to offset a poor soil and distant markets. And a
"lift" was in the thought of the good earth as an all-year living entity, without
long months of semi-death.
This then was another economic factor: a type of agriculture made possi-
ble only by a marked difference of climate from the main body of the nation.
It is these differences from other States which give to South Florida a special
function on behalf of all.
Still another distinction, if not difference, vaguely realized by the pioneers
as an economic factor of the future, was location at the end of a long penin-
sula jutting into tropic waters. As the nearest mainland point to trade cen-
ters of South America and the West Indies, Miami would have a great advan-
tage. This distinctive, almost insular location also brought added virtues to
a climate which latitude alone might have failed to give.
It seems strange that Florida, first to be explored by the Spaniards, should
have been practically the last of our nation's frontiers to be tamed. We must
remember, however, the change from flag to flag prior to statehood; the years
of intermittent warfare with the Indians; then the War between the States with
its long and bitter aftermath for the entire South. And South Florida was far
beyond the Deepest South.
Stranger still is the speed with which it has grown since once it really
started, despite that period's crippling wars. The noted scientist and world
traveler Von Humboldt told the world that the place to live, not merely exist,
was in the tropics. Perhaps this magic growth has been part of that trend
towards the tropics which many have foretold. South Florida, its climate of

F. PAGE WILSO N

the modified, tropical marine type, is not strictly within the tropic zone. Yet,
very close, it is also American with all that this implies socially and in gov-
ernment. It is significant, too, that the two or three states which are gaining
most in population are those renowned for sunshine. A contributing factor
no doubt lies in the changed attitude of many classes of our people. The long
rough work of subduing a continent about completed, they turned more and
more to the joys of a fuller, freer, more natural life in the open.
When the Flagler railroad was built to a spot in the jungle on Miami
river known sometimes as Fort Dallas or sometimes Miami, this became the
nucleus or starting point for the entire region. It had in itself only a dozen
or so inhabitants but there were larger settlements at Lemon City and Coconut
Grove, some five miles north and south, respectively, on the Bay. All three
were in the coastal belt, sometimes called the Coral Ridge because of its rocky
nature. The rock, in places looking rather like coral, was really a sub-struc-
ture peculiar to the region and known to geologists as Miami oolite. This,
with the pine trees and thick growth of palmettos and other undergrowth, made
the land exceedingly hard to clear. Interspersed with this were the prairies,
usually free from rock and thus tillable but which, until recently, had defied
successfully cropping. There was also the hammock, a jungle of tropical hard-
woods.
On the higher lands of the coastal belt, back of the Bay settlements, lived
mostly the homesteaders. In all, there were from three to four hundred peo-
ple scattered over say a hundred square miles with emptiness beyond. It was
here naturally, near Miami and the railroad, that development made headway
first. On the West, in an irregular line a few miles back, lay the Everglades,
inhabited only by roaming bands of Seminole Indians. To the East, across
the Bay, was a long narrow peninsula flanked on the ocean side by the Beach,
the only building a House of Refuge for stranded mariners. Stretching south
or southwesterly from there at intervals all the way to Key West were the
sparsely peopled Florida Keys. These constituted the region's four main com-
ponent parts.
Trains were now running and people came flocking in: builders and others
seeking work, adventurers looking for they knew not what in a new land,
fruit and vegetable growers from further north in need of warmer winter,
merchants seeking a ground-floor location. Many liked it well enough to buy
a site for home or business and start building. But not all. There was the

TEQUESTA

man who, shown some lots, shouted indignantly he hadn't come all that way
to see a rock heap. Others, their arrival happening to coincide with that of
the mosquitoes, made a frantic rush for the next train out.

Three months later, on July 28, 1896, Miami was incorporated as a city
and under that name. Even before that, there was a newspaper. As might
be expected from a place so typically American, the political-minded got busy.
Too much power, they claimed, was wielded by the railroad interests. The
wrangling of the pro and anti-railroad factions went on for years. The peo-
ple worked just as hard as anywhere else but they liked their fun and the way
that even the leaders mixed it with their politics was something for the books.
Yet, though there was plenty of this "small town stuff," factors were at
work to keep the community moving along the right lines. Flagler, through
lieutenants who had elected to stay, was always ready with advice and
often a helping hand. The proximity, sometimes the interest, of so many of
the nation's leading men at his great hotel, the Royal Palm, may have incited
citizens to a wider outlook. The fine great city of Mrs. Tuttle's dreams may
have been a little beyond the ken of Tom, Dick and Harry, but they did feel
that this was a different, no ordinary place. It was their chosen home for
which nothing was impossible and, like Nelson turning his blind eye on what
he wanted not to see, they were prone to shrug away the difficulties. Perhaps
it was this local pride which earned for Miamians the gibes with which often
they have been teased.
The infant city received its first real shaking up with the sinking of the
U.S.S. Maine and the declaration of war with Spain. Its nearness to Cuba; the
sight of the filibustering "Three Friends" in the Bay or Keys carrying guns for
the insurgents; now and then a refugee seeking asylum; all these added to the
excitement and to sympathy for the struggling Cubans. The encampment of
several thousand soldiers on the Bayfront brought the war still closer home.
People in Miami, like the world at large, had an exaggerated idea of .Spain's
strength and prowess. A few had such vivid fear of her guns or perhaps a
landing, that they left town and pitched their tents at the edge of the Ever-
glades.
The Spanish-American War, of no great moment in itself, led to conse-
quences worthy of note here. The taking over by the United States of Puerto
Rico and (temporarily) Cuba was to mean a much wider knowledge of the
beautiful Caribbean region, and Miami was the natural gateway. During
those summer months of 1898, too, the Royal Palm was headquarters for

F. PAGE WILSON

a multitude of Army and Government officials and newspaper correspondents.
The ensuing publicity did something to break down the isolation of this little
outpost of the tropics. And the return afterwards of so many of the encamped
soldiers, to take up residence, was an early illustration of how, once known,
it was able to draw population.
Another episode originating in Cuba brought tragedy to this section. A
seaman from Havana, then a hot-bed of yellow fever, was tending his boat in
the Bay when he was found to have contracted the disease. It spread and sev-
eral died. Miami was strictly quarantined, of course, and this is said to have
been the only period in its history when it received no new residents.
This leads to further results from our connection with Cuba. Through-
out the world at that time was an exaggerated idea of the unhealthiness of
tropic climates. To some such remark about Cuba, made to an eminent Amer-
ican sanitary engineer, there to investigate, his reply was quite pointed.
"Bosh!" said he. "If New York had the same lack of sewerage as Havana,
there wouldn't be many left to tell the tale. Climate-that's all right!" Un-
der U. S. guidance, proper sanitation was installed, the carrier variety of
mosquito known as Aedes Egypti finally controlled, and the island has been
free of yellow fever ever since. Given the same degree of research and at-
tention of the diseases of the tropics as to those of the North, the former are
no harder to combat. All this has had peculiar significance for Miami, not
only as a health haven but in its later capacity as a pivot point for tropic
travel.
The Royal Palm and other hotels-for by this time there were several-
were a scene of great activity in winter. Northerners seemed to like their
spots of luxury amidst tropic wilds. Some even now had started to make their
Miami visit a yearly habit. They loved the warmth and sunshine, the flowers,
the exotic trees in full leaf. Many a tourist found the trees almost as much
of an attraction as the climate. It makes hard to understand the urge today
of some people to cut down every one "too near" their premises. The city
was almost surrounded by groves, many owned by local merchants.
Then, too, for the sport-minded, there was golf or they could go sailing
or swimming or, with local guides, go fishing for the big ones in the Gulf
Stream or hunting 'gators or wild boar in the back-lands. Others would saun-
ter through the streets or stores, their light bright dress in gay contrast with
that of some grower or a trapper just in from his daily chores. Miamians
loved all this, too; the brisk business, the new faces every day, the chance to
attend the dances or hear great singers at the big hotel.

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Summer was a different story and everything was very, very quiet. The
optimists had become somewhat less so; were afraid the little city was not
growing as it ought. They liked the rush of tourists but what they wanted was
a larger permanent population. Probably however, this was gaining about as
fast as should have been expected. Dade county at that time extended as far
north as the St. Lucie river with its seat of government at Juno, north of Palm
Beach. By 1899, population of the Biscayne Bay area had already caught
up and exceeded that of further north and the county seat was moved to Miami.
The palms, fruits and other plant growths of the tropics have always held
a peculiar fascination for nature lovers. Here, several of those tested had
done well and the possibilities looked endless. Among the new-comers were
a fair proportion who wanted land for farming. Some were orange and veg-
etable growers from up-state seeking a climate which, if not entirely safe from
frost, was freer from it than anywhere else on the mainland. Somebody has
pointed out that the only way really to understand Florida at its subtlest is
through year-round close contact with its soil. It seemed at this time that
many a northern business or professional man, catching the idea, decided to
spend his retirement years in South Florida building a grove.
South of Miami in the coastal belt was an area where the soil, of a reddish
color and almost clayey texture, was excellent for fruit. There were also large
marl prairies producing fine crops of winter vegetables. In 1904, Flagler
extended the railroad thirty miles south to Homestead, taking in this "Red-
lands" section.
Soon there were little settlements all along the line with nice-looking
homes and thrifty groves of citrus and tropical fruits. The mango and avo-
cados became Miami specialties, South Florida's food gift to the nation.
Some of the finer varieties were originated by local growers. In this section
Flagler planted a 100-acre orange grove. Here, too, was the famous 1600-
acre tomato farm of the Peters boys. From the profits, it is said, was erected
one of Miami's finer hotels, the Halcyon, designed by Stanford White. Before
long, the county was able to boast of being the largest producer of winter
tomatoes in the world.

These years gave further indications of what Miami's future course was
to be. Still just an attractive small town, it could have been much more so
with proper planning, never a strong point with the authorities then or later.
Enough for most people were the good, pure, life-giving air, the clean and
shining streets and buildings, the beautiful gardens; gifts of nature which

F. PAGE WILSON

made everything so different from what they had been used to. Tourists were
increasing and, among them, were always some who built themselves homes
for permanent or winter residence.
It was fortunate for a young town of this type that so many of these new
residents were blessed with private means. Given enough of them, there would
be the equivalent of two or three fair-sized factory pay-rolls. The tourists also
of course, brought business, not merely for rooms and service in winter, but
in the building of ever more new hotels and apartment houses in summer.
Many of these were put up by people who, settling here themselves, desired
to invest in something which would give them something to do. The groves
and farms brought in fair returns, but the line of least resistance for capital
in these and following years appeared to be in the tourist and allied fields.
The demand created by residents and tourists, for homes and goods and
services, furnished opportunity for many more who wanted to live there if
they could only make a living: builders, clerks, mechanics, business and pro-
fessional men; and these, with their needs, smoothed the way for others still
to come. Stated simply, it meant money in circulation, the beginning and
mainspring of economics in action.
The following were years of expansion, of daring projects for opening
up the region's great outlying areas. Because of the difficult terrain and the
novel methods employed, they seized the headlines of the nation's press.
Since its one great need was to be better known, this public interest was good
though sometimes it back-fired.
First of these projects had to do with the Florida Keys. That chain of
Robinson Crusoe-like little islands, hanging like a necklace around the south-
east coast, had long been joined in fancy with Spanish buccaneers, pirates and
treasure trove. The people, known as Conchs, were descendants, some of
them, of the Eleutherian Adventurers who, for freedom's sake, had settled in
the Bahamas some 300 years ago. Living mainly by and from the sea, for
pocket money they grew limes and pineapples between the rocks. And now
these tropic islets in a sapphire sea, each little beach or mangove cove so
like yet differing from its fellows-all this, the very heart of nature unalloyed,
was to be opened up by extension of the railroad from Homestead to Key
West. South from Key Largo for more than a hundred miles it would skip
from Key to Key over the ocean by means of bridges, fills and viaducts.
Flagler found himself in a maze of obstacles. The idea was unprecedent-
ed and no responsible contractor would offer a firm bid. So he organized a
staff to carry it to completion. Materials and supplies, even water, had to be

TEQUESTA

shipped in by sea. Housing of the great army of workers was a problem
solved by converting large lighters and even stern-wheelers into floating camps.
A hurricane in 1909 washed some of these away and many workers drowned.
Surveyors found that the Earth's curvature made their work too difficult, so
platforms were erected to tower above the ocean. Deep water and swift cur-
rents hindered the laying of foundations. One bridge alone, the Seven Mile,
had 544 piers, some of them 28 feet below the water-line. Test by trial and
error had to be the rule throughout.
The Overseas Railroad, opened to traffic in 1912, continued in operation
until 1935. On Labor Day of this latter year, a major hurricane swept away
much of the embankment and the Florida East Coast Railway decided to aban-
don the line below Homestead. The bridges and viaducts, however, remained
intact and, sold to the State, became the foundation for the Overseas Highway.
By bus and automobile now instead of train, hundreds of thousands enjoy the
thrill of traveling over miles of sparkling blue-green ocean, the Atlantic on
one side, the Gulf of Mexico on the other.
Everglades Reclamation, "in the air" for years, actually started in 1906.
Instead of the few years anticipated, it has taken many more and the end is
not yet. Against numberless setbacks, either legal or by failures on the land
itself, with little to keep hope alive except marvelous crops in one or two
favored sections sometimes, this great but complex project, once it was begun,
has always been a "must."
It is not quite accurate to say its sponsors had no plan. The land was
20.42 feet above sea-level at the southern edge of Lake Okeechobee, catch-
basin for a large area to the North. From that point it dropped very gradu-
ally southward and to the coast. On the strength of these and other data
gathered by Buckingham Smith years before and by Governors Jennings and
Broward, it was believed that, by building canals to take water off the land
and keep the Lake at a safe level, cutting through the coast ridge to give them
access to the sea, the Everglades could be effectively drained. Such as it was,
this was the plan adopted.
The State dredged canals and sold great tracts to land companies. These
"developers" broadcast the nation with salesmen and literature extolling the
joy of owning a little piece of fabulously rich soil in a land of warmth and
sunshine. Thousands bought and many came to view their land, either to
plant and make a miserable failure or to foresee it would be hopeless. True,
it was potentially very fertile, even if not quite like the Valley of the Nile
with which so often it was compared. For this muck soil, the result of genera-

F. PAGE WILSON

tions of decaying saw-grass, was purely organic and, though extremely rich
in some elements, was comparatively poor in others. The fact remained that
drainage canals alone were not sufficient to make it productive.
Apparently, not enough thought had been given to the time required, in
a region of often heavy rainfall, for the water to run off three or four thou-
sand square miles of heavily grassed, barely sloping land. Apparently, too,
it had been assumed that the Everglades was the same all over, both in soil
and substructure. This, of course, was far from being the case. Other errors
made themselves known later and in costly ways.
Protests by those who had bought such lands were loud and bitter, locally
and throughout the nation. Work went on but the episode brought the Ever-
glades into a disrepute which lingered many years. Even so, there were many
who, drawn to South Florida by interest in that great project, liked other fea-
tures well enough to stay.
Miami Beach, scene of the next great expansion, made its first appeal, as
did other parts of the region, as a spot for tropic planting. In the early days
it happened that a man and his son named Lumm saw a few coconut palms
growing on the Beach. Imbued with the Humboldt idea that a land of the
cocopalm would make an ideal home for man, he pressed others to join him
and, a few years later, they started planting for miles up the coast. Then
John S. Collins, a large nurseryman in New Jersey, came to investigate. He
formed a high opinion of the country but, dubious about coconuts as a com-
mercial crop, planted a large avocado grove.
South Florida owes little to its politicians but a great deal to men of
wealth and vision, who, intrigued by something distinctive in its atmosphere,
have built greatly and in tune. Such a man was Carl Graham Fisher, living
in Miami for his health upon retiring from a big business in Indiana. By
chance he met Collins, then past 70 and building, against financial difficulties,
a wooden bridge across the Bay. Impressed by his courage and faith in the
country, Fisher helped him in return for land. He also helped J. N. and J.
E. Lumnus, Miami bankers who had bought the Lumm holdings and started
a subdivision on South Beach. Soon there were three concerns: the Carl
Fisher, the Collins now joined by his son-in-law Thomas A. Pancoast, and the
Lummus Brothers, all building a place where, in Carl's own words, "the old
could grow young and the young never grow old."
It was a herculean task. To those who never saw the beach peninsula
in its primeval state, it is hard to convey a true picture of the obstacles or of
the vision, the dogged will, the unstinted expenditure of money needed for

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their conquest. Hundreds of acres were in swamp, a black oozy mire criss-
crossed with roots and branches of the stilt-like mangrove. These had to
be chopped down and covered with dirt sucked from the bottom of the Bay.
Luckily, this killed two birds with one stone, for it left a fine channel for
yachts. Inside the belt of mangrove was hammock, some of its trees so hard
that broken axes became a problem. The few open spaces were filled with
big palmettos of the toughest kind. Dredging alone often took over $50,000
per day and the total cost must have been appalling.
But Fisher was not the man to be appalled. Rough and ready in word
and action, fantastic on occasion in his methods, he knew exactly what he
wanted. If not an artist, he had the artist's conception of the one thing fitting
for his plans. The land, covered by black dirt from the Everglades, was
divided into lots, leaving space for polo, golf and tennis grounds. Fisher's
first hotel, the dignified Lincoln, was quickly followed by others. Lincoln
Road, the coming Rue de la Paix of our western world, was cut through the
jungle to the sea. In no time at all, it seemed, the place was a fairyland of
green grass, red, pink and white oleanders, bouganvilleas, palms, with here
and there a beautiful home peeping through the tropic landscape.
Miamians watched the change but took it in their stride. To them it was
a furtherance of their own ideas on a more lavish scale. Some asked, why
all that expense on wild land across the Bay when there was so much on
the mainland? The extension of that glorious beach amid beautiful sur-
roundings was a pleasant thought, but many wondered if Carl Fisher was
crazy. Up North, they knew he was.

Flagler lived long enough to look on Miami as the "City of Eternal
Youth." One reason for its lack of excitement over cross-Bay doings was
that it was so busy on its own side. Newcomers, both tourists and perma-
nent residents, were more and more in evidence. In summer came a rush to
build for extra needs next winter. Miami had little of the usual small-town
atmosphere, even if its stores were not quite so metropolitan as their owners
liked to think. The minister of a fashionable New York church, lamenting
his decimated congregation after New Year's, added with a half-rueful smile,
"They seem to look forward to that place among the coconuts as a sort of
promised land on earth."
In fact, Miami was doing so well that E. G. (Ev) Sewell, that dynamo
of action for his beloved city, decided the time had come to do better. So

F. PAGE WILSON

far, except some by the Flagler interests, its only advertising had been
through word-of-mouth or letter by residents or visitors. Sewell argued for
national publicity. Tourism was not so purely commercial in those days
and some demurred, believing that a taste for South Florida was too personal
a matter to warrant such a "mass appeal". He had his way, however, and a
campaign started to raise funds by public subscription. Asked why the adver-
tising was addressed to tourists rather than homeseekers, he replied, "Oh,
once here, they'll sell themselves the homes".
Miami has always been a publicity-conscious city. Perhaps under its
economic circumstances it was bound to be. It had to sell, not automobiles
or other products, but itself, its homes and way of life. Information was
needed and columns poured from city hall; mostly, however, about glamorous
events and bathing beauties to catch more date-lines. And much publicity,
for a place as for a person, can react like a boomerang, easing the way for
any little off-key happening to be puffed up into a highly colored "story" for
the nation.
Among newcomers in these years were wealthy men who, in quiet but
effective ways, did much to preserve the distinctiveness of the region. James
Deering, after searching the world for the ideal location, established on the
shore of Biscayne Bay, a palatial villa of the Italian type, replete with care-
fully chosen art treasures from Europe. Vizcaya, as he called it, is now a
county museum. Hating to see rare native trees destroyed to make room for
a new building, he often permitted the use of his specially constructed crane-
truck, with crew, to remove them to safety. His brother Charles established
two estates with fine mango and avocado groves. The Matheson family were
equally fond of trees. To their generosity the county owes two of its finest
parks.
Dr. David Fairchild, the noted plant explorer, came first in connection
with an early U. S. Plant Introduction Garden, taking up residence later.
Then he induced Washington to develop a much larger Garden at Chapman
Field and, a few years later, with Col. Robert H. Montgomery, established the
Fairchild Tropical Garden which bids fair to become one of the world's great
arboretums. Charles Torrey Simpson of the Smithsonian and Dr. John C.
Gifford, a noted forester, were other old-time residents who, writers like Dr.
Fairchild, have done much to picture this very individual region to the world.
It is now time to revert to the Everglades, to see what progress had been
made, if any, since the issue in 1913, of the famous Isham Randolph report.
Besides some new canals, it had recommended reclamation by progressive

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steps. That is, on only such land as was needed for immediate use. One
result was that the Everglades Drainage District, created by the legislature
that same year, organized sub-districts equipped with reversible pumps under
local control. This did much to forward the great project. Production of
winter vegetables advanced year by year. Sugar was a proven crop. Ship-
ping centers became busy little towns. Despite orthodox opinion against
planting orange groves in muck soil, they throve and the fruit sold at premium
prices. All this, however, was in favored sections of good water control. A
few thousand acres were wonderfully productive but millions of acres re-
mained no nearer to safe cultivation than at the beginning.
There was, however, a trouble which lay far deeper. This unused land
was now a positive danger. By opening the way, without let or hindrance,
for millions of gallons of water to flow out to the sea, the delicate equilibrium
of nature had been upset. Its water-table lowered, this muck land dried out,
oxidized, was subject to burning, sometimes down to bedrock. It also shrank
and subsided, to the detriment of drainage even if otherwise possible. South
Florida is blessed with a practically unlimited supply of water-billions of
gallons of it in the underlying porous rock. Now, to crown all, with removal
of freshwater pressure from the surface, conditions had become ripe for salt
to infiltrate into city drinking water and further and further into the farms
and gardens of the coastal belt.

Miami Beach had been incorporated as a town in 1915. Carl Fisher, to
say nothing of the others, had spent millions in getting the land into shape.
Now, strangely enough, the public showed little interest, even with prices far
below true value. Perhaps the old Puritan tradition was still at work, warn-
ing against anything beautiful for its own sake. Or, more probably, the
hesitation was due to the unsettled conditions during World War I.
At its close, everything changed. Fisher, acting on a hunch, made a
drastic advance in prices, and demand rose quite rapidly. Then he put on
a great publicity campaign: a vari-colored dome on top of the Flamingo
Hotel visible for miles at sea; gondolas with native Venetians on the canals;
every day a new galaxy of posing bathing beauties beneath the palms. The
demand grew and grew. On a site which had been advertised as free to any-
one building a $200,000 hotel, the Roney Plaza went up at a cost of
$2,000,000. Dozens of the nation's great industrial leaders bought, built
palatial homes and estates under the tropic sun.

F. PAGE WILSON

The War drew attention to another factor based on the region's primary
asset, one which was to prove of highest economic importance. Its equable
climate and freedom from fog, its non-mountainous terrain, made it ideal
for flying. Washington established its first air training school at Dinner
Key, afterwards headquarters for the Pan-American Airways. Glenn Curtis,
too, famous aviation leader, started a flying school northwest of Miami. On
land owned by Curtis and added to by some bought originally by James S.
Bright for a cattle ranch was built the new city of Hialeah. Miami was
spreading out.
The U. S. Census for 1920 drew wide-spread comment. It showed that
the population of Miami had multiplied more than five times over in that
decade. So far its economic system, to call it that, had worked quite well.
An active real estate market, the building of homes, hotels and apartment
houses for new arrivels, the hundred and one services for residents and tour-
ists, kept money moving briskly. Still, there were but few ways to make a
living, particularly in summer, and this lack of diversity doubtless kept many
people away. Despite this, it looked as if Thomas A. Edison had been right
years ago, when he said there was only one Florida, and, sooner or later, the
people of America would know it. Many plans were under way to provide
the foreseen need for homes.

Coral Gables was first the name of a large fruit and truck farm in the
southwest section, started in the early years by George E. Merrick's father, a
Congregational minister from New England. As a youngster, George worked
hard on the farm, then graduated at Rollins and was studying law in New
York when his father's failing health brought him back. Always fond of
art and something of a writer, his thoughts had turned to self-expression in
stone and iron and wood. He loved this region and what he called its "deep,
indigenous romance." Just writing about it was not enough. His dream was
of a Coral Gables to be; a beautiful and balanced city of well built homes of
Mediteranean type. Everything which counted was to have its rightful place.
Above all, the prevailing note was to be of harmony, with no building, or any
part of it, clashing with its neighbor.
Merrick's new city, the "Master Suburb", started amid great fanfare.
That strict idea of harmony, he confessed, was harder to sell than the land
itself; buyers were used to cities which grew up any which way. But they got
over that, in crowds they came; by train and auto; by special bus from
Chicago and New York. Soon there were curving boulevards and fine houses

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in park-like grounds, with roofs of picturesque old tiles from Cuba, Spain
and Morocco; and, in other zones, were smaller, equally pleasing homes.
Some fine buildings were erected: the City Hall, two country clubs, the Miami-
Biltmore Hotel with illuminated tower, a replica of the Giralda in old Seville.
Gateways of mellow native rock, Italian renaissance style, gave a touch of
old-world charm. A large and ugly rock-pit became a fairyland pool for
water sports. There were parks, tennis and archery courts, golf links where
tomato fields had been.
Demand grew and, with it, Merrick's plans for Coral Gables. The
original 1600 acres had spread to 10,000, through to the Bay. The water-
front section was to be the most luxurious of all, with canals and lakes and
yacht basins. The extension brought it south of Coconut Grove, favored
spot of the first pioneers and, now a part of Miami, still a zealous guard-
ian of its native beauty against urban inroads. From the beginning, it has
been the home of well-known authors and artists.

It was becoming Greater Miami with a vengeance. The tempo of growth
in all parts increased daily. Real estate was very active. A growing com-
munity needed more land and houses, more stores and churches, larger
theatres and other buildings. One man seeking property for a certain purpose
might find it profitable to pay a higher price than that given by the present
owner. A third might consider it a good investment at a price still higher.
There had been cases, too, of land needed to round out some big project and
selling at very high figures. On the whole, however, the buying and selling,
though on a large scale, had been of a quite legitimate type.
Insidiously a new spirit entered. All over the country reports had
spread of the big and certain profits on land and other property in and around
Miami. Speculators flocked in from every State. The impulse which had
brought people to South Florida, the desire for a fuller, freer, more natural
life, was still in force. But now, commercialized, it became the basis of a
land selling campaign such as the world had seldom seen. The changing
viewpoint, at first a tiny seed hidden in a mass of real development, was to
reach fabulous heights. And the seed contained the germ of sure reaction.
Investment became a forgotten guide. Land long unsold at $100 per
acre or less sold for $1000, then more, and finally much more. Two or three
local real estaters, fearing ultimate results, tried to stem the tide. It was like
Mrs. Partington with her broom. Carl Fisher did his best to stop speculation

F. PA CE WILSON

in his properties by a drastic increase in down payments; this failing, he took
them off the market. Meantime, it was not all a gambler's fantasy. Big
capital had entered and perhaps this made it harder for the little man to
discriminate. Biscayne Boulevard was on its way. Corporations with great
resources were putting up fine hotels and office buildings. Miami was reach-
ing for a sky-line.
The City's newspapers had always taken on a duty beyond that of pub-
lishing the usual local, national and world news; that of educating their
readers in the ways and differences of a strange near-pioneer land. This has
not stopped them from giving space to sometimes biting criticism of local
doings or conditions. Now in these days of boom, it was hard to keep pace
with the daily rush of new developments. Each achieved a world record:
the Daily News with a special issue of 504 pages; the Herald with an adver-
tising lineage for the year exceeding that of any other paper to that time,
with whole pages turned down for lack of room or paper.
A thought long in the minds of George Merrick and his father was now
revived. Perhaps in reaction against this money madness in a region whose
beginnings had been so markedly the reverse, it spread with mounting enthu-
siasm. It was for a University of Miami in Coral Gables, a great university
in keeping with its distinctive location at the meeting place of temperate-tropic
zones and of Latin and Anglo-American cultures. Merrick promised 160
acres and $4,000,000 cash, the public $15,000,000. Time would be needed
for full fruition. But it was one great movement, in those crazy days, whose
influence was to be incalculable in many diverse ways.
The F. E. C. railroad, unable to cope with the accumulating mass of
building and other supplies for the southeast coast, declared an embargo.
Then the harbor, jammed with cargoes trying to unload, was blocked by a
ship which ran aground in the outer channel. Contractors and others were
put to heavy loss, but this was only the last straw. That tiny germ of reaction,
hidden in the excitement, had never ceased to grow. Real estate owners began
to note a touch of resistance when they tried to sell. Lots sold more slowly
and second payments were not always met. By the winter of 1925-26 the
boom was over, though many failed to realize it.
The effect of this collapse was ruinous, particularly on such sections as
Coral Gables which had only started recently. But it is very necessary to look
on the episode as a whole and from the true perspective. In 1920 the popula-
tion of Miami, twenty-five years from the jungle, was still under 30,000. To

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picture it, however, as some have done, as a sleepy little fishing village awak-
ing to find itself the center of the world's greatest boom, is quite misleading.
From the very beginning, as we have seen, it had drawn residents from all over
the country. Slow at first, this migration had gained impetus with each pass-
ing year. So much so, indeed, that in the early 'twenties, the longing for
Florida was seized as a text for salesmen. Without that deep feeling in the
hearts of thousands, any such great upheaval would have been impossible.
In other words, it was simply a phase, but luridly intensified, of the movement
which had been under way for many years.

Nor is it correct to say that, at the expiration of the boom, there was a
sudden cessation of work or a drastic drop in population. With the lifting
of the embargo, many buildings (but not quite all) were completed and work
went on for years on several large public projects already authorized. How
far the population was from any actual "drop" would be revealed in the next
U. S. Census. It is true that many, coming in the hope of making this their
home, now found it impossible. Thousands more, lured simply by the easy
money of those hectic days, had come and gone. Certainly, they could not
be counted as part of the population. In any case, other thousands still
believed enough in the country to stay, including some who are among Miami's
most valuable citizens today. The really sad plight was of some of its own
people who, tempted by absurdly high prices to sell cherished homes or groves,
eventually were obliged to take them back in a half ruined condition.

The ill feeling against Florida was wide-spread, though the speculators
themselves were at least as much to blame. A few, knowing when to stop,
came out ahead. Many more lost. Some complained of dropping $100,000
or so in Florida. Perhaps some did but, probably, more came down with a
few hundred or less, pyramided it sky-high, then lost all in the slump. Others
talked of being swindled. Quite likely. Hundreds bought off nothing better
than a blueprint. It is true that many of the lots sold so glibly ought to have
been sold by the gallon. On the other hand, many still under water when
bought, soon afterwards were the sites of charming homes and gardens. Two
boom-time speculators were talking over their experiences. Said one, "The
truth about Florida is a lie" and the other agreed, but added,-"though it
would be just as true the other way around."

A few months later, on September 18, newspaper headlines told the
world that the Miamis had been "wiped out" in a terrific hurricane. All
wires were down, so perhaps a little exaggeration may be forgiven. The facts

F. PAGE WILSON

were bad enough. The shrieking, wailing, thudding sounds of that great
storm were well nigh incredible even to those who heard them, and so was
the ruin it had wrought. Hundreds of homes and other buildings had simply
fallen down, thousands damaged more or less. Boats, swept across newly
made Bayfront Park, lay on the front street. One hundred and sixteen lives
were lost so far as could be discovered; but there may have been more.
Many streets were impassable because of fallen trees; other trees lost their
leaves and many branches. In exposed buildings near the sea-shore, corri-
dors and ground-floors were blocked by several feet of sand.
It has been asked, why the enormous damage from this particular storm?
First, there was but little preparedness against it. No storm of any violence
had struck this coast for twenty years. Most of the people, largely newcomers,
had but a vague idea of hurricane as something that happened in some far-off
place. Above all, this was a giant storm which had come just after a period
of poor construction for quick sale during the boom. Careful survey showed
that reasonably well built houses had generally come through with little or
no structural damage except perhaps to roofs or through unprotected windows.
The fatalities, largely, were of people who, taking advantage of the storm's
"lull" to go outdoors, had been caught in its violent second half.
Miamians learned that their usual kindly Caribbean climate could wield
a vicious thrust. Records of hurricanes since 1926 show that, aided by an
efficient Weather Bureau, they have learned how to deal with them. Building
regulations of course were studied and made more rigid. The fact is that
scarcely a year passes without a number of these "tropical disturbances"
starting somewhere in that vast stretch of ocean between Florida and the Cape
Verde Islands. Another fact is that, at first discovery, most of them are
headed in the general direction of Florida; the great majority, however,
veering off, within two or three days, in one or another of the dozens of
directions open to them. Sometimes, of course, a hurricane comes right on
to hit Miami or other southern point. But more often, it turns toward some
other place, occasionally as far as New Jersey or New England. And in this
case, even if the storm has never reached within hundreds of miles of the
Florida coast, the New York broadcasters still call it the "Florida storm."
As a test of morale, so important in any economy based on appeal to
the homeseeker, the great 1926 storm could not have come at a worse time.
The name Miami, for a time, became synonymous with hurricane the de-
stroyer. Property owners who had hoped, in the coming tourist season, to
recoup money lost in the boom or in failing banks, faced instead an outlay

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for repairs. People, dazed at first, were quick to see the need for clearing
up the ruins. Such signs appeared as "Down but Not Out" on a tumbled cot-
tage, or "Boom, Bust or Blow we're still here" on many a tattered Ford. Vis-
itors that winter were startled to find the return to normalcy so well on its
way. Surprised, too, to see anybody smiling. But perhaps this, as the cynic
would say, was only the Miamian's habit of shutting his eyes to unpleasant
facts.
Business and general conditions in the Miami area were slowly improving
when news came of the Wall Street crash. It was the beginning of perhaps
the worst period in the history of the United States. Worst, too, for Miami,
because it had only barely pulled out from two great disasters of its own and
this National Depression would make the third within brief time. To bring
this fully home, a large Miami bank, one of the two which had survived boom
and hurricane, closed its doors with little ultimately for depositors.
The U. S. Census for 1930 told a story which should put aside a great
mass of misinformation. The economy of this region had been based from
the beginning on its innate attractiveness to home-owners. What then, had
been the net combined effect of the boom, the hurricane and now this national
depression? The census reported for Miami proper a population of 110,637,
an increase of 274 per cent, the largest of any city in its size-class. Surround-
ing it now, too, were daughter cities growing still more rapidly. The boom
and its collapse, the 1926 hurricane, were great landmarks in the history
of this thirty-year-old city. The vital question in any appraisal of its char-
acter is the way it came through those disasters of its own and the nation-wide
one so soon to follow.
It is fortunate that human needs are definitely less exacting under a
friendly sky. Yet it is hard to say how people managed to live during those
dark depression days. It was sad to see families of refinement trying to earn
a pittance from pretty arrangements of coconuts, sea-shells, odd-shaped
flowers or plants, free gifts of a beloved country which offered so much but
not a living. The tourist business, of course, was "off", with hotel and room
rates cut to the bone. Strangely enough, some tourists and a few new resi-
dents came for the very reason which kept so many away. "My business up
North no good," they said, or "I've always wanted to come to Florida and now
I have a good excuse." Some, repelled by conditions they had seen during
the boom, now returned to stay.
It was during this period that racing started on an authorized basis.
Against the ideas of some who disliked gambling in any form, pari-mutuel

F. PAGE WILSON

betting was legalized and Joseph E. Widener, a wealthy man of highest stand-
ing, proceeded to build at Hialeah the "most beautiful track in the world."
It was followed by other ventures, both in horse- and dog-racing. To such
extent, indeed, that Miami merchants and others asked for moderate limitation.
But it was of no avail. The people of the many small counties having a com-
bined population far less than Dade's-the same people who scold Miami for
its "racing, night-club atmosphere"-objected to any chance of reduction in
their county dividends. A day at the track affords a pleasant, colorful time
for thousands of visitors. But it is funny how racing fans take credit as
upholders of the "season". Winter racing came to Miami because this was
where the crowds were.
The great depression started to lift from the Miami region sooner than
in most other parts. Many fine homes had been bought up quietly, some at
prices much lower than the cost of reproduction. New building started in
earnest about 1933, and, frequently in the next two or three years, the value
of permits exceeded that of cities of much larger size. Banking and commer-
cial indices showed improvement year by year and so did the number of
new residents and tourists. Rents which had been cut from $100 down to
$50 or even $40 were now advanced to $75 and Miami again was raked for its
shocking prices!
A few of the more thoughtful, in recent years, had pointed to the grow-
ing need for industries. Many living in the region, many more wanting to
come, had no inclination for the tourist business even if they had the means.
Thousands of young people leaving school or college desired a wider choice
of careers. But the idea had made little headway against the all-pervading
resort psychology of the time. This was, and always had been, a tourist area.
People came here to get away from smoke and dirty air. An industrial atmos-
phere would spoil it.
Gradually it was realized that light industries such as proposed did not
call for smokestacks and that, with proper zoning and restrictions, the area's
living conditions need not be disturbed. Moreover, both management and
workers would be helped by the same qualities of nature which brought the
tourists. For that reason, too, investment and operation costs would be
smaller. During these years, a number of new industries were established
and the movement grew. Almost as much as on the purely business aspects,
many such decisions rested on choice of a place to live.

Then came news of Pearl Harbor and, with it, some misconceptions of
the Miamis. Now they would become ghost towns, some said. Perhaps it

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needed some such crisis to make clear the basic facts about this area. It might
not get the tourists. But the facilities, the health and sunshine for which they
came, would be put to more important use in the housing, training and rehab-
ilitation of our fighting men. Another and rather silly accusation was that
the Miamis "didn't know there was a War." But certainly they did know.
More closely than most, they saw it with their own eyes: torpedoed ships
drifting aflame off-shore; dead or sorely wounded sailors washed up on the
beach; private boat owners organizing at their own expense into hard-working
groups to spot submarines.
Compared with the great industries of the North, of course, the contribu-
tion of local factories was but a drop in the bucket. As we have seen, South
Florida's function in the War was vital but quite different. Its quota of war
goods, however, was sufficient to kill that old myth about workers in the
South being less active or efficient than their northern brothers. As the
Chairman of the Smaller War Plants Board put it, "Florida plants with fewer
hands turned out more goods."
The end of the War found the Miamis crowded to the gunwale. Tourists
flocked into an area occupied largely by friends and relatives of service men.
New residents, fewer than usual during hostilities, seemed to be making up
for lost time. The number of such arrivals, then and since, is calculated at
30,000 each year. Many of those trained in the area, now veterans, came back
to stay. Miami never was the Old Man's Town that some imagined. Accom-
modations were hard to find and, as in crowded spots elsewhere, prices soared.
But in Miami, it was because all the black marketeers in the country had
gathered to buy up everything in sight. At least, so said the smart ones,
The University of Miami at Coral Gables, after the War, was recognized
as one of the outstanding independent schools of the nation. Started under
woeful conditions following the great hurricane and fighting against such
obstacles as only dogged determination, unswerving loyalty of staff and the
administrative genius of Dr. Bowman F. Ashe, its first President, could have
overcome, its campus buildings strike a new and interesting note in functional
architecture. To meet the cultural needs of the community, in music and art
it has done wonders. Its scientific contributions, particularly in marine
biology, medicine, tropic food research, are widely noted. In conjuction
with the county ,it recently inaugurated a medical training school which, with
the climate and medical skill of this area, can be expected to fill an impres-
sive role. In football and other sports ,its teams, with the usual up-and-down
luck of the years, have made an excellent record. All through the work of

F. PAGE W ILSON

this University can be traced a full recognition of the distinctive character of
its location.
Readers of Cardinal Newman's "Site of a University" (ancient Athens)
will remember some striking points of analogy, topographic and human, with
our own little segment of America.
Another fine institution, on the same Pan-American lines as the Univer-
sity of Miami, is Barry College for Women, located in suburban Miami
Shores and conducted by the Sisters of Saint Dominic. There are several
widely known private schools. Coral Gables, with its Century Club, and
Miami Beach, with its Bath and Surf Clubs and Committee of One Hundred,
are better provided in that respect than is Miami proper. In view of its fame
as a convention city and the fondness of its people for music, exhibitions,
forums and group gatherings of a hundred kinds, it is strange that proper
facilities were so long in coming. Now, however, the Beach has a commod-
ious auditorium and Miami no less than three. An adequate central Public
Library also was erected a few years ago.

Everglades reclamation, largest but least satisfactory of the great regional
projects, again seized on public attention. Two or three very dry years,
marked by many muck fires and alarming inroads of salt, were followed, in
1947, by floods which damaged homes and groves in the outskirts of coast
cities. The U. S. Engineers, aided by data already collected by Everglades
Drainage Engineers and U. S. Geological and Conservation agencies, proposed
a plan to avert either flood or that still more dangerous enemy, drouth. The
plan, now being carried out, is really a compromise with nature. That is,
it allows large acreages of the less desirable land to revert to a wild state,
thus holding huge supplies of water in reserve and keeping the water-table
up and the salt down. Another part consists in many miles of levee for pro-
tection of the better lands. So, after all, we may see the Everglades reclaimed.
Not the immense empire envisioned fifty years ago but still a great area of
highly productive land.
Remembering how we have suffered for past sins, we can sympathize with
those who wish the Everglades had never been touched by the hand of man.
Yet, to be realistic, we should not forget existing facts. The Everglades south
of Lake Okeechobee-to take the chief of two or three favored areas-is
probably the largest producer of winter vegetables in the world, of higher
protein content than most. Its 100,000 tons of fine cane-sugar is kept at that

TEQUESTA

low level only because of the quota. Its sleek herds of cattle are famous.
Ramie, rice and materials for plastics are a few of its other crops. The total
cost of reclamation up to date, large as it has been, is less by far than the
value of its products every year. And, without those questionable canals,
Miami's living space would be considerably smaller than it is. Even so, the
difficulty still is to keep buyers and builders away from land which is too low.
The Everglades, South and Southwest, takes on a role quite different
from the above. It merges into a wilderness of tropic jungle, cypress and
sawgrass and mangrove swamps, criss-crossed with a veritable spider's web
of forest-banked tidal creeks. Lacking the mountain and ravine scenery of
many national parks, this is unique in its trees and birds and other animal
life. After years of never ceasing effort by Ernest S. Coe of Miami, helped
greatly at the last by John D. Pennekamp of the Miami Hearld, and others,
this great area was formally dedicated in 1947, as the Everglades National
Park, a strange, unforgettable wonderland which many travel thousands of
miles to visit.

We have now seen Miami in the making; in the throes of boom and
other disasters; in process of surmounting their effects. We have seen, too,
the working of that great basic resource on which it has built from the begin-
ning. And we have seen how, far from dormant even in time of stress, it
soon resumed its old-time vigor and insistence, continuing through the years
despite dislocations of the War. Now let us look briefly into the ways in
which this economy has branched out to meet increasing and more varied
needs.
Tourism is less predominant than in past years. Not due to any actual
decline but to the rapid advance of other activities. As a revenue producer,
it is still the largest single item. Business in winter is a good deal larger
than before the War and now continues throughout the year with many
visitors from Latin America. The annual return ranges around $220,000,000.
Greater Miami has lost a little of its old-time near-monopoly as a tropic
vacation land ,though side-trips to foreign lands add to its own attractions.
As an offset to some loss of tourists, it is becoming a trade and transit center
for the rival spots.
It is said that, in the resort area of Miami Beach, more de luxe hotels
have been erected since the War than in all the rest of the world. That long
array of fine hotels is a wonderful sight. But to allow great masses of con-

F. PA G E W I L S 0 N

create and cabanas to obstruct the ocean view is the sort of planning to make
a man like Carl Fisher stare aghast. Some casual hotel visitors seem to
imagine that the resort atmosphere is typical of the entire area. Even on the
Beach are thousands of quietly beautiful homes in no way connected with
tourists, just as there are very large sections of the mainland devoted to pur-
suits entirely different.
The fact is, there are many Miamis besides the famed resort, each a little
world of its own, at times so intense in its activities as to be mistaken for the
whole. There are the worlds of fishing and boating and other sports, of
research and gardening, of trade and cultural relationships with Latin Amer-
ica, to say nothing of the great world of business of the usual and some
unusual kinds. Some have decried Miami as a city of night-clubs. It may
have more than most places of its size, but so also does it have more churches
and, probably, many more educational and social groups.
Then, scattered here and there but fairly large in the aggregate, is the
army of health seekers. The tropic sun is a mighty power for health even
if tourists are sometimes tempted to hasten the process to their cost. The
South Florida climate is of great help in many ailments and physical condi-
tions; but there are some for which it is not recommended. More often than
not in the latter case-for they persist in coming-the sufferers reap enough
benefit to stay, though they might reach nearer to a cure in some equally
sunny, but drier, climate. However, for general well-being or in cases call-
ing for recuperation after wounds or after illness, accident or operation, that
of South Florida is outstanding. There was full evidence of this in the War
when thousands of patients were flown almost directly from the battlefield to
Miami's International Airport.
Another of the old standbys, of course, is the construction industry
which, in the first year after the War, carried through a new building program
in Dade county (mostly Greater Miami) to a value of $71,000,000. During
each of the past several years, it has varied between nearly $150,000,000 and
over $200,000,000, the largest, per capital, in the country. Later a rush of
new building started on the Keys: hotels, motels, fishing lodges, homes for
residents or for Miamians desiring a week-end change.
Agriculture has advanced but not perhaps to the degree that was antici-
pated in the early days. However, with a contribution of about $50,000,000
per year, Dade stands third among all Florida counties for the value of its
products. Scientific research has always been a strong point in regional
plant and soil doings and this bids fair to continue.

TEQUESTA

Aviation's high place in the Miami scene is the direct result of climate
and geography plus fine citizen cooperation. It is forging ahead so rapidly
that figures are of little value. Aside from indirect benefits, the annual in-
come is about $120,000,000. The New York to Miami air route is the most
heavily traveled in the world. Its International Airport is rated as the second
busiest in the United States, while its foreign business is as large as that of
all others combined. Air cargo, increasing very quickly, is a special boon to
local manufacturers of lightweight goods shipped to the Islands and South
America. An important feature is the size and completeness of the plane
repair and conditioning shops, employing 17,000 skilled mechanics.

The number of manufacturing plants in and around Miami at last
counting was nearly 1600. At a recent exhibition, some 10,000 articles of
local make were on display, ranging from boats to furniture, awnings, shutters
and other house accessories, apparel, food products, metal goods and machin-
ery, electronic articles, cement and stone products and many others. Some
plants make a point of employing the physically handicapped. Twenty-seven
per cent of the entire country's factories using aluminum as chief material are
in Dade county. When Paris fell to the Germans, Madame Schiaparelli, the
French dress designer, passing through, was asked where the world's fashion
center would be now. Smiling, she replied, "Why not Miami?" The needle-
craft firms, few then, number now well over two hundred and are associated
with an ambitious group known as Miami Fashion Council. One advantage
they do have is that a favored winter style in Miami is usually a fore-runner
of summer acceptance for the nation.

It should now be clear that the economy of this section, deep-rooted but
different in its beginnings from most, has developed as needed, into one which,
for soundness and diversity, compares well with that of other prosperous
sections. If proof be wanted, study the banking and commercial indices for
the last twenty years. In practically every case-bank debits and deposits,
income, post-office receipts, telephone and electric light usage, etc.,-the
ratio of increase has been equal to or above the best national averages, often
quite markedly so. Even in the recessions, the local effect has been a slowing
rather than a setback. Trade, too, wholesale and retail, has increased mater-
ially, both as to area covered and in volume. A feature of recent years has
been the growing trade with foreign countries.

Miami, with the twenty-six municipalities surrounding it, bids fair to
become one of the nation's larger metropolitan areas. It is unfortunate that

F. PAGE WILSON

so many of these great centers seem to lose something in the growing process.
Some advantages, of course, may accrue: the opportunity, for instance, to hear
or see the world's very best in music and art, the drama, lectures and so forth.
More apt to be provided are the long felt needs. Plans are under way in
Miami for an enlarged and better sea-port and for extension of the Overseas
Highway northbound to that city. It hopes soon to see the long expected
Inter-American Cultural and Trade Center in action. The Historical Associa-
tion of Southern Florida, already possessed of a large store of archives and
valuable relics, plans to build a museum for their public display. A greater
population will mean more diverse thinking, still more ways and means for
the dissemination of knowledge.
On the other hand, mere size, without the utmost care for quality, can
aggravate conditions which are not so good. Already Miami's traffic-parking
problem is such that many look back longingly on the old days. Railroad
tracks are still permitted to bar the city's westward expansion. Its law
enforcement officers, seldom noted for zeal, often have been suspiciously lax.
Not long ago, racketeers and gamblers from the big cities tried their hardest
to make this their multi-million Winter Capital and, for a time, looked as if
they might succeed. Too often is quick profit for the individual given head-
way at the expense of space or lasting beauty for the public.
Such shortcomings are hurtful to any city, particularly one based on
attractiveness to the home owner. Yet, mere surface conditions brought about
by man, they are for man to remove as speedily as he can. Those who really
know Miami, who have seen how the sheer force of its nature has prevailed
over far worse troubles, know it will always be the uniquely desired city of
Sub-tropic America.

This Page Blank in Original
Source Document

The South Florida Baptist Association
By GEROGE C. OSBORN AND JACK P. DALTON

Much of South Florida with its numerous fresh water lakes, its rich
fertile soil and its mild, moist climate provides an ideal home for the white
settler. Into this environment came pioneers including Baptist laymen,
missionaries and preachers. As was the custom elsewhere among members of
this religious sect, the first religious services were held in the homes of the
scattered settlers. By the 1850's several churches were organized in this part
of the Peninsular State. One of the earliest of these was the Hurrah Baptist
Church (Alafia) of Hillsborough County which was established in 1850 and
which in 1851 called as its pastor Reverend James N. Hayman.
Born near Savannah, Georgia, Hayman, as a young man, had migrated
to Lake Lindsey, Florida. Converted at a revival meeting which was con-
ducted by a Baptist Missionary, John Tucker, Hayman was baptised July 4,
1844. Upon the organization of the Eden Baptist Church in 1848, this new
convert was elected clerk and shortly thereafter he became a deacon. Feeling
a call to preach, Hayman was ordained in 1851 and immediately accepted the
call to the pastorate of the Hurrah Baptist Church.
Perhaps this early south Florida frontiersman was by nature too restless
for the exacting duties of a pastorate or perchance he visualized greater fields
of spiritual service as a missionary. At any rate, within two years, Reverend
Hayman began work as a missionary in South Florida. It was as an itinerant
evangelist that this Georgia emigre was to make his greatest contributions to
the Baptist cause in the Sunshine State. In 1853 this Baptist minister began
to hold religious services in the Socrum Community. These services, a decade
later, resulted in the organization of the Bethel Church with fifteen charter
members. In 1854 Reverend Hayman, assisted by R. G. B. Wooley, consti-
tuted the Peas Creek Baptist Church. This church later changed its name
to the Peace Creek Baptist Church and eventually in 1882 became the First
Baptist Church of Bartow. In 1855 a very successful revival meeting in this
village church so strengthened the church in religious endeavor that a pas-
torium was erected and a minister moved into the community among the
members of the congregation. By 1867 this growing church had an active

TEQUESTA

membership of seventy-three, sixty-four of whom were white. Yet another
church which was established under the influence of Missionary Hayman was
the Shiloh Baptist Church which later was renamed the First Baptist Church
of Plant City. Organized in January, 1866, with seventeen charter members,
the Shiloh Baptist Church provided a place of worship and for instruction
in the Baptist doctrine for its members.
The spiritual fruits of Reverend Hayman's missionary efforts included
not only the organization of the Bethel Baptist Church, the Peace Creek Bap-
tist Church and the Shiloh Baptist Church, but also the First Baptist Church
of Tampa. Apparently, the first sermon which Hayman preached in the
growing town of Tampa was in June 1852. Despite the fact that no Baptist
Church existed in the Tampa Bay area at that time, converts to the Baptist
faith were won and the ordinance of baptism was administered. During the
following year, 1853, Reverend J. H. Breaker organized a church which,
unfortunately because of lack of support, was soon forced to disband. On
July 23, 1860 Missionary Hayman reestablished this defunct church with
sixteen white and eight colored members. Hayman, elected pastor, remained
for approximately two years. During this brief period, because of an inade-
quate income, he was compelled to supplement his pastoral work with employ-
ment as a carpenter and painter. The Civil War wrought havoc with this
church in that the membership decreased to exactly a dozen, of whom only
three were men. During the ensuing years the First Baptist Church of Tampa
was frequently without a pastor but lay leaders organized a Sunday School,
maintained prayer meetings and endeavored successfully to carry on the work.
In all of this work, Hayman's encouragement was repeatedly felt.
In addition to aiding in the organization and early development of four
Baptist Church, this Georgia-born missionary-pastor preached 2,200 sermons,
performed 424 baptisms, married 147 couples, and, as a minister, aided six
young men in becoming preachers. In spite of these time-consuming tasks,
Hayman gave evidence of wide reading and progressive ideas.
Reverend Hayman was by no means the only missionary who helped to
spread the Baptist doctrine in south Florida. There were others whose work
was just as interesting, whose hardships were just as severe, but whose careers
in this area were not as long as was that of Missionary Hayman, nor were the
fruits of their spiritual efforts as bountiful as were those of this adopted
Floridian.
Baptists have many denominational characteristics and practices. Cer-
tainly, one of the most wide of the latter is that of establishing numerous

GEORGE C. OSBORN and JACK P. DALTON

associations. An association is a loosely organized group of churches usually
located in a rather compact area. Each local church is completely indepen-
dent and may or may not join the association of which because of the
church's location it would naturally become a member. Moreover, once a
member in good standing any church can by formal request or by merely
refusing to attend the associational meetings, sever its relations with any
regional Baptist association.
The element of personality or leadership often explains the division of
an association into two or more similar but smaller organizations. Moreover,
upon certain conditions a Baptist association can drop a church from its
membership. However, it should be added, that this step is an unusual one
and is seldom taken.
South Florida Baptists were no exception to these common denomina-
tional practices. In 1867 the First Baptist Church of Bartow withdrew from
the Alachua Association and assumed the leadership in creating the South
Florida Association. In spite of this fact the Bartow Church, for non-attend-
ance at meetings, was dropped from membership six years later, only to be
reinstated in 1882. Ably aiding the Bartow Church was the First Baptist
Church of Plant City. Upon invitations from these churches, twelve Baptist
churches located in Hernando, Manatee and Polk Counties chose messengers
who met in the Plant City Church to discuss the formation of a South Florida
Association. After much consultation and fervent prayer a decision to estab-
lish a new association was made. An organizational call was then issued to
these churches to convene at Bethel Church on December 6th. At this meeting
at which all twelve churches were represented by a total of seventeen messen-
gers the South Florida Baptist Association was effected. Elder S. B. Todd,
pastor of the Plant City Church, was elected moderator. Possessed of unusual
talents, Todd, a gradaute of Harvard University, had journeyed southward as
a Methodist preacher. Under the leadership of Pastor A. Wilson, Todd
joined the Bethel Baptist Church in 1865 and subsequently was ordained as
a Baptist minister. Elder Samuel C. Craft of Tampa became associational
clerk. The total membership of all the churches in this new South Florida
Association was 371. In area this South Florida Baptist Association included
much of central Florida and all of the southern part of the Sunshine State.
Evidencing a keen interest, people came from far and near to attend
meetings. Sister Robinson rode on horse-back from Manatee County to Dade
City Oak Grove Church to be present at an assembly. As further evidence
of zeal five new churches joined the South Florida group in 1868. Interest

TEQUESTA

and enthusiasm continued so well that by 1902 this union was declared to be
the "banner association in the state." As the Florida Baptist strongest asso-
ciation in numbers and in wealth it gave, in 1902, the largest gifts to all
denominational endeavors.
In the South Florida Baptist Association the Bartow and Tampa churches
pioneered in the Sunday School movement. They, in 1868, reported prosper-
ous Sabbath Schools in their churches and repeatedly exerted annual efforts
to have every church in the group to establish a Sunday School. But, as late
as 1941, two churches in this organization were without Sunday Schools.
Interest in spreading the Gospel throughout the southern part of the Pen-
insular State was evidenced at the first associational meeting by a report of
the Finance Committee that it had for missionary work received $29.08 in
cash and "4 bushels of potatoes, 5 beef steers, 2 pr. socks, 1 grubbing hoe"
in provisions. Determined efforts were made to keep at least one missionary
at work within the boundaries of this association. It was not until the great
freeze of 1895 which extended deep into south Florida and financially "em-
barrassed beyond description" so many Floridians, that the mission pro-
gram, as did all religious work, suffered greatly. Within five years, how-
ever, this group of Baptist Churches, was supporting seven missionaries in
the associational field.
The South Florida Association was aided in its missionary endeavors
when the Baptist Home Mission Board in the 1880's sent Reverend J. G.
McCaskey of Georgiana, Alabama, on a missionary tour of Florida. Over
roads of sand, through reptile infested swamps, around the periphery of
numerous lakes and across streams of brackish waters this tireless missionary
plodded his way on horseback. Arriving in Lakeland in 1885, McCaskey
found twelve Baptists. These he assembled and constituted into the First
Baptist Church of Lakeland. Although this servant of God was soon on his
way elsewhere the spiritual enthusiasm with which he left this small group
bore a rich harvest. Within two years this church had increased its member-
ship to eighty-three. By 1903, eighteen years later, this church had advanced
from quarter time pastoral labor to full time work, and had replaced its
original wooden church building with a much larger and better equipped
edifice. Under the inspiring leadership of Pastor T. S. Boehm, Lakeland First
became one of the ten leading Baptist churches of Florida and certainly one
of the foremost members of the South Florida Association.
American religious history is replete with examples of a minority of a
religious group withdrawing to form a different, though similar organiza-

GEORGE C. OSBORN and JACK P. DALTON

tion, or to create a new sect. An illustration of the former type occurred when,
in 1922, one hundred and six of the members of the First Baptist Church of
Lakeland withdrew to form the Southside Baptist Church. Convenience of
worship was the only reason for this secession from the church founded by
Missionary McCaskey a generation earlier. Dr. W. J. Bolin, pastor of the
First Church, presided over the organizational meeting of the Southside
church. A tent, purchased as a temporary home of this newly created church,
was completely destroyed shortly thereafter by a September storm. Undaunted
by such catastrophe the church subsequently erected a roomy brick building
but at considerable expense and some indebtedness. With the advent of the
major depression in October 1929, Southside Church found itself, as did
many other such institutions, burdened with a debt which seemed steadily to
increase. Since Dr. James S. Day became pastor in 1934, Southside has met
all of its financial obligations, erected a $99,000 Educational Building and
launched a program of advancement which has earned for Southside a well
merited place in the upper bracket of the increasing number of churches in
the South Florida Baptist Association. Both Lakeland First and Lakeland
Southside have grown from the initial church of twelve members effected by
Missionary McCaskey.
South Florida Association, at its annual meeting in 1902, received a
request from the Manatee River Baptist Association that, because of inadequate
finances, the latter organization was disbanding and that its entire member-
ship wished to unite with the former group. In part of the area served by
the Manatee River Association, a railroad was nearing completion. Already,
new towns were mushrooming up at Boca Grande, Palmetto, Parish, Sarasota,
and Venice. In some of these sparsely settled rural communities Baptist mis-
sionaries had visited, but, there was a great need for more evangelistic effort.
The South Florida Association accepted the opportunity at once.
As those who were developing the phosphate mines in Polk County,
began to increase appreciably the number of their employees, a missionary
was sent to serve them. Reverend 0. N. Williams was chosen by the associa-
tion for this work and received a monthly salary of $50, This organization
was informed that twenty phosphate mining communities "comprising a
population of nearly 4,000 souls" were in great need of spiritual leadership.
Because of sustained zeal, the association, in a few years, had established
churches within the environs of every sizable phosphate mine.
Around the turn of the century, Tampa was growing and expanding
rapidly. The South Florida Association took note of the great spiritual desti-

TEQUESTA

tution in this surrounding area and dispatched Reverend E. N. C. Dunklin as
Missionary. He was to be paid $100 a month for his work in Tampa. Born
in Alabama, Reverend Dunklin knew and loved people. From the very begin-
ning of his work, the Missionary succeeded. In 1909 E. L. Todd was appointed
"colproctor and missionary of the Association" at an annual salary of $1,200.
At the annual 1920 associational meeting when discussing the subject of
missions someone moved that a large tent be purchased for Missionary-Evan-
gelist F. T. Taylor. With the tent supplied, Taylor "proved himself to be the
right man in the right place". Under the influence of his preaching many
were converted, and numerous "trunk Baptists" (whose church letter is in his
trunk rather than in a local church) placed their letters in local churches.
One of the high water marks in this Association's mission work was reached
more recently by Missionary Frank Faris who entered this field of service
in 1942. Men's brotherhood groups sought to anticipate the needs of the
Reverend Faris by purchasing for him a trailer, loud speakers and other
desired equipment. Also in 1942 the South Florida Baptist Association began
the publication of an Associational Bulletin to inform all of its member
churches and its increasing number of home missionaries of the widespread
and varied work of this organization.
As early as 1897 this group of alert Baptist churches established an
Associational Library. Appropriations were made annually for the purchase
of books which were placed at the disposal of the preachers serving as pastors
and misisonaries within the organization. Especially, were the younger men
who had been called of God to preach, but who lacked a higher formal educa-
tion and who were without the financial means of securing the needed train-
ing, encouraged to read extensively in this collection of books. The increasing
library included volumes on Baptist doctrine, Baptist History, commentaries
on various Books of the Bible, biographies of distinguished Baptist leaders
and Biblical characters, books of collected sermons, and volumes dealing
with the increasing number of auxiliary organizations of a growing Baptist
Church. The Association came to the aid of a group in real need of support.
In denominational doctrine the South Florida Association, for many
years was extremely orthodox. When President Whitsett of the Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary declared that the Baptists could not trace their
origin beyond 1610, this Association, with obvious enthusiasm, leaped into
the controversy. The Association, at its next meeting, voted not to send any
more money to the Seminary until Dr. Whitsett was fired or until he resigned.
This decision was made in the face of a denial by the Seminary President of

GEORGE C. OSBORN and JACK P. DALTON

ever having made the assertion. "Higher criticism" with all of its scientific
hypotheses and implications was condemned. Fear that the younger minis-
ters might possibly be influenced by such an approach to the Bible was fre-
quently expressed. Even Stetson University was viewed with a critical eye.
The Association expressed opposition to the practice of adding more faculty
members from the North. To an increasing number of Associational members
Stetson appeared to be out of step with the wishes of Florida Baptists, Some
were not greatly surprised, when, in 1906, the South Florida Association voted
to withdraw all financial support from its only state denominational univer-
sity. Fortunately, upon further debate the minority convinced enough of the
majority that a great mistake had been made so that another vote was taken
and the customary financial support was restored.
The orthodoxy of the South Florida Association would tolerate neither
an addition to nor a subtraction from the Holy Writ. When the Young Men's
Christian Association, under the leadership of John R. Mott, published a
"Shorter Bible", the Association's ire was aroused and a sharp rebuke was
administered to the Y. M. C. A. One of the repeatedly stated aims of the
South Florida body was to teach the Bible to the people. For any person or
any group of people to attempt to alter, in any way whatsoever, the Word of
God was anathema to the Association.
For a number of years this group was plagued with churches that called
themselves Baptist, but actually refused to cooperate in Associational matters.
Especially was this lack of cooperation evidenced in the work of Missions.
These churches, although out of step, retained their membership in the Asso-
ciation and seemed determined to capture control of the organization. In
the 1921 Associational Assembly these churches were condemned for their
promotion of disunity and as Baptist churches, they were urged to fulfill their
obligations to the South Florida Association of which they were full fledged
members. This reprimand sufficed for nine years but in 1930 notice was
served that letters or messengers for non-cooperating churches would not be
accepted. Moreover, any preacher who served such a church would not be
recognized by the South Florida group as a Missionary Baptist minister.
Slowly, the Association's dedication to orthodoxy began to change. With
an increasing number of Baptist churches within the bounds of the Association
which were termed "Landmark" churches because they refused to organize
Sunday Schools or to contribute anything to missions through the Mission
Boards as established by the Southern Baptist Convention, the Association
voted to receive all such churches who were "desirous of fellowship". Those

TEQUESTA

who sponsored such a move declared that they were not giving up any Baptist
doctrines nor did they contemplate that the Association would decrease its
gifts to missions. In these statements they seem to have been accurate. Some
thought that the decision was a mistake but all agreed that a brotherly gesture
had been extended to the non-cooperating Baptist churches with the hope that
the widening breach between the "Landmarks" and the "Missionary" Baptist
churches of South Florida would be healed. This pleasant anticipation has
not been realized with the unanimity which many anticipated.
Generally speaking, the pastors and the leading laymen of the South
Florida Association appreciated the loyal support and endless work of many
Christian women. "A great deal of dissatisfaction" arose among the leaders
of this organization when the Florida State Mission Board employed a woman
to be State Secretary of Woman's Work. It was "an unwise expenditure of
money" protested the South Florida Association, and concluded that such an
office was not needed. Although women have gradually won a more signifi-
cant place among the councils of this Association they have not yet gained for
themselves a position of absolute equality. When, for example, the issue of
women preaching in churches of this group arose, the Association affirmed
the ancient doctrine that no woman was to preach or exercise control over
mixed public assemblies. What would happen if a member church, believing
in democracy and exercising that faith, voted to extend an invitation to a
woman minister to preach in its pulpit? If the proposal was accepted, that
church would be immediately dropped from the Associational membership.
This rather high-handed procedure was taken in an organization of Baptist
Churches long since dedicated to democratic congregational government.
The churches of this group were possessed of the highest type of patriot-
ism during the two global wars in which our country participated during the
first half of the twentieth century. Not only did this group of South Florida
Baptist Churches furnish its share of young men for the armed forces but
special sermons were delivered and prayers were uttered in churches and in
Associational Meetings for the cause of our country. Recognition was given
in all these churches to those of their members who participated in these
wars. Memorial services were held for those who gave their lives in the
service of our country. The names of these brave heroes have been preserved
on a special page set aside in the Associational Minutes for that purpose.
In 1941 the Baptist Book Store, located at Jacksonville and under the
management of Miss Effie Sutton, paid an unusual compliment to the grow-
ing membership, the cultural interest and influence of the South Florida Asso-

GEORGE C. OSBORN and JACK P. DALTON

ciation by displaying, for the first time, a large selection of books at the
Annual Meeting. This innovation proved so successful that it has been con-
tinued each year. Hitherto, at only the Florida State Baptist Convention had
there been displayed a collection of books from the Baptist Book Store.
By 1944 the South Florida Association was promoting so many activities
that it became necessary to employ the clerk-treasurer two days out of each
week to supervise the work. The joint clerk-treasurer official was an old
office in the organization but the administrative responsibilities were new.
As compensation for these added chores a salary of $600 per year was
provided.
Throughout the years in which the South Florida Baptist Association has
existed, several other Baptist organizations have been created within the area
served by the original association. Usually, these new Baptist organiaztions
have been formed by the union of two groups of churches. These consist of
new churches which had been recently created and had not joined the South
Florida Association and older churches which had gained membership in the
parent Association but for various reasons desired to withdraw from the older
group and to assist in forming a new organization. To list all of these
younger Associations, their charter members, the denominational leaders who
created them and the immediate background of their organization would
constitute an article itself. One example will suffice here.
There were at least two reasons for the formation of the Tampa Bay
Baptist Association. Some believed the South Florida Association had be-
come too large. Not that the territory had been extended because such was
not the case but the number of Baptist churches within the southern part of
the Peninsula State was mounting rapidly. From the Associational records,
one learns that leaders of the large west coast Baptist churches were convinced
that the stronger Polk County Churches were dominating the organization's
policies and program. When the Tampa Bay Area Churches in 1911 failed in
their efforts to gain control of the Association, they served notice of their
intent to form a new organization. Messengers, clergy and laymen from the
Clearwater, Manatee County, St. Petersburg and Tampa Baptist Churches
withdrew from the original Association, and created the Tampa Bay Baptist
Association. Every phase of the new organization's work has prospered from
its birth.
In 1950 the South Florida Baptist Association, despite .the withdrawal
from time to time of a goodly number of its members to help create new

60 TEQUESTA

organizations, was composed of sixty-eight churches. These churches, at the
Annual Associational Meeting, reported 1,396 baptisms within the past year
and a total membership of 25,532. Gifts, during the mid-twentieth century
year from these churches amounted to $748,101 of which $129,040 was for
missions. In 1950 church property owned by the members of the South
Florida Baptist Association was valued at $2,331,860.

REFERENCES
Alachua Baptist Association, Minutes
Atlanta, Christian Index
Jack P. Dalton, "A History of Florida Baptists", a doctoral dissertation on file in the
University of Florida library.
The Florida Baptist Witness
0. J. Frier, A Memorial Sketch of the Life and Ministerial Labors of Reverend J. M.
Hayman, One of the Pioneer Baptist Preachers of South Florida Who Passed to His
Reward Above July 9, 1902. (Nashville, 1902) The book is composed largely of
Hayman's diary.
South Florida Baptist Association, Minutes.

A Petition From Some Latin-American

Fishermen; 1838
Edited by JAMES W. COVINGTON

During the seventeenth, eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth
centuries, a lively commerce developed between Cuba and the Southwestern
coast of Florida. Some Spanish vessels brought to Florida trade articles like
knives, axes, trinkets and cloth which were exchanged for hides and skins of
all types. Sometimes, the Calusa Indians tok a twenty-four hour canoe trip
across dangerous waters in order to sell fish, amber, bark, fruit, furs and
valuable "cardinal birds" in Havana.,
When the Seminoles moved into the southern part of the peninsula, they
visited Cuba via the fishing and trading vessels.2
These early visitors carried word back to Cuba that the Florida coastal
waters abounded with vast schools of edible fish. During the eighteenth cen-
tury fishing companies from Havana sent vessels into the area. These fisher-
men worked from September to March and salted and dried their catch in
their semi-permanent camps, known as ranchos, which were established on
the islands along the coast.3
Anglo-Saxon visitors to the section noted in their accounts the presence
of some Indians who were known as Spanish Indians.- Many of them worked
for the various companies during the season and when the fishing operations
had ceased, they cultivated small garden plots which were located near the
ranchos. Some later-day observers felt that these Spanish Indians were the
result of intermarriage between the Calusa or Seminole Indians and the Cuban
fishermen. Due to the inroads of the slave hunter and the whiteman's diseases,
the number of full-bloded Calusa Indians by 1800 must have been very few
indeed.
One recent study made by William Sturtevant has been most exhaustive.
He suggests that "these Spanish Indians were perhaps Choctaw, perhaps
Calusa remnants or perhaps a more independent Seminole band." Sturtevant
found that the present day Seminoles considered Chakaika and his band of
Spanish Indians, who lived in the Everglades, to be a Seminole group.5

TEQUESTA

The Second Seminole War which blazed forth in 1835 brought to an end
the Cuban fishing ranchos and the Spanish Indians in Florida. Several mili-
tary leaders were certain that the Spanish Indians really were Seminoles and
had assisted in the warfare against the whites. Some Seminole leaders, when
captured, claimed the fishermen as their tribesmen and stated that if this group
were allowed to remain in Florida, the uncaptured Seminoles would not sur-
render and be deported to Oklahoma.6

Two respected white men came to the defense of the Spanish Indians.
Captain William Bunce, proprietor of several fishing ranchos, admitted that
there had been some intermarriage between the Seminoles and the fishermen
but stated that most of the Indians spoke Spanish, lived on the islands and
rarely visited the mainland.' Augustus Steele, pioneer county judge, post-
master and deupty customs inspector explained to Jessup that the Spanish
Indians were never recognized by the Seminoles as their fellow tribesmen
and permitted to collect annuities.8 In spite of the protests by these two
respected citizens, the ranchos were systemically closed and the inhabitants,
together with the Seminoles, were removed from Florida.9
Facts concerning the Cuban fishermen and the Spanish fishermen have
been very meager since American and English visitors to the ranchos did not
go into detail concerning their life and activities. One of the best clues as to
the background of the Cuban fisherman and early relations between Cuba
and Florida was discovered in the records of the Office of Indian Affairs at
the National Archives in Washington, D. C. This evidence was recorded in a
petition from a group of fishermen to the Secretary of War Joel Poinsett.'o

To The Honorable Joel Poinsett,
Secretary of War

The memorial of the undersigned
Respectfully represents
that your memorialists were located on the Gulf Coast of the peninsula of
Florida as fishermen and seamen at the time of, and long prior to the cession
of the territory to the United States, that it has been a long established cus-
tom among the class to which your memorialists belong, and one which was
recognized by the Spanish Government at Havanna (sic) as legal to inter-
marry with the Indian women of the country. Many of the children, offspring
of these marriages were baptised and educated there and recognized as legit-
imate by the authorities of that city and country. Some of them are now

JAMES W. COVINGTON

residing there in respectable situations and enjoying all the rights and
privileges (sic) of Spanish subjects.
Your memorialists further states that at the change of Flags they became
lawful citizens of the United States by virtue of the provisions of the treaty
and have since that period exercised the right of sufferage and all other
privileges and immunities of American citizens.-
That at the commencement of the present war that portion of your mem-
orialists who resided at Charlotte Harbor were driven from their homes and
pursuits by the Indians, their property plundered and destroyed and that with
their wives and children they sought safety on one of the Islands in the mouth
of Tampa Bay, and uniting with those of their own class residing there for
common defense they pursued their usual avocations as far as their exposed
situation would permit.z That your petitioners have been long and intimately
acquainted with the Gulf Coast of Florida, and have cheerfully rendered
their services to the Government as Pilots when no others could be found of
sufficient knowledge of its navigation to render that service, that while many
of them were thus engaged in serving the country an order from the Command-
ing Officer forced from their homes their wives and children and has driven
them to the West sparing none in whom any Indian blood was found, thus
visiting on them punishment for the murders and devastation committed by
their enemies. This order which by a single blow has severed from them
their families and blasted at once their happiness and all their prospects in
life, your memorialists solemnly believe has been the result of deep and
malignant misrepresentation and falsehood contrived by their enemies to
wreak their vengeance upon those who refused to join them in the atrocities
(sic) which they have perpetrated.
In the year 1836 the wives of two of your petitioners were claimed by
the friendly Chief Holat [or Holahte] Emathla as descendants of his tribe
with the intention of removing them with his party to the West.
Your memorialists appealed to General Scott then at Tampa. The case
was submitted to Colonel James Gadsden the framer of the Treaty of Payne's
Landing who declared these people not to be embraced in the terms or mean-
ing of the treaty, and General Scott decided that they should not be removed.
The present Commanding General though entertaining different views in
relation to them founded either upon motives of policy or resulting from mis-
representations did nevertheless after the violation by the Indians of their
solemn compact and pledge in 1837 and his assurance that inasmuch as they
had thus treacherously violated their engagements they had forfeited whatever

TEQUESTA

claim they might have had to their people and that said claim should not
again be heard. As some evidence that these people have been considered as
distinct from the Indians embraced by the terms of the Treaty, it might not
be improper to state that a number of those who have removed of Indian blood
have been recognized and recorded as American Seamen at the Custom house
at Key West as may be seen by the roll of equipage of the Sloop Enterprise
in the year 1830, '34 and '35.
Your memorialists respectfully urge that neither they nor their families
have lived within the Indian boundaries, nor have they been subject to the
Indian laws, that their associations-mode of life are all actually different
from those which characterize that people. That their families are incaple
(sic) of gaining a subsistence by the means usual among the Indians, and
that their removal to a strange country when their long accustomed occupa-
tions and only means of support could not be pursued must inevitably
subject them to hopeless destitution and wretchedness.
That having continued true and faithful to their allegiance and hold
themselves at all times in readiness to serve the country in any manner in
which their services could be required while those who sought to destroy them
have spread ruin and desolation over it, they feel that they have just claims
on the protection of the Government for themselves, their wives and children.
They therefore earnestly pray that the order of removal may be rescinded
and that they may at least be permitted to return to their homes when the
Seminoles shall have been removed and the only shadow of a cause for their
present position shall cease to exist, but if their prayer is denied they
earnestly entreat that they may be permitted to remove to some other country
where heir families can be supported and protected from the vengeance of a
people from whom forgiveness is rarely extended.i-
Signed:
Bonifacio Crusado Jose Bromudos Domingo Alvarez
Maximo Hernandez Manuel Benitez Jose Suqones
Pedro Felis Felipe Sevilla Iviculas Bara
Gabriel Ferrera Antonio Herrera Felipe Orta
Gregorio Montes de Oca Juan Castojima Peter Weaver
Jose Rudriquez Juan Diego Morales Antonio Carpechamo
Joaquin Caldes Juan Montes de Oca Santos Domingues
A true copy
W. G. Ferrand
Lt. 4th Artillery.

JAMES W. COVINGTON

1 Anthony Kerrigan, ed; Barcia's Chronological History of the Continent of Florida
(Gainesville, 1950), 345.
2 Captain Isaac Clark of the Sixth Infantry visited Charlotte Harbor in 1825 and found
many Seminoles visited Havana in order to secure rum and presents. He also noted
that many runaway slaves fled from the United States via the fishing vessels. Agent
George Humphreys to Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, March 2, 1825, Florida
Seminoles, 1825, Office of Indian Affairs, National Archives, hereafter cited as 0. I. A.
a In 1769, Bernard Romans noted that the Spanish fishermen used about thirty vessels
and salted about a thousand tons of fish each year. Karl H. Grismer, Tampa (St.
Petersburg, 1950), 42.
4 Generally speaking, these Indians were found along the coast of southwestern Florida.
William Bunce to General Wiley Thompson, January 9, 1835, Florida, 1835, 0. I. A.
s William C. Sturtevant, "Chakaika and the Spanish Indians", Tequesta, XIII (1953), 64.
o General Thomas Jesup to Secretary of War Joel Poinsett, April 22, 1838, Florida,
1838, 0. I. A.
Bunce to Thompson op. cit.
B Augustus Steele to Thompson, January 10, 1835, Florida, 1835, 0. I. A.
o The Story of Captain Bunce's ranchos was related in the article by Dorothy Dodd,
"Captain Bunce's Tampa Bay Fisheries 1835-1840", Florida Historical Quarterly XXVI
(January, 1947). Bunce's heirs received $1,000 from the United States Government
as compensation for the unjust destruction of the fishing establishments.
lo Memorial to Poinsett, no date, Florida, 1838, 0. I. A.
11 Article VI of the Adams-Onis Treaty guaranteed this right. Henry S. Commager, ed.
Documents of American History, I, (New York, 1935), 224.
is One of Bunce's ranchos was located at Palm Island which is very close to the present
site of Sarasota.
is One Arkansas newspaper reported that about 150 Spanish Indians had been removed
from Florida. Seven Spaniards were allowed to remain at New Orleans until the
close of the war. Grant Foreman, Indian Removal, (Norman, 1953), 365.

This Page Blank in Original
Source Document

'Volunteers" Report Destruction

of Lighthouses
Edited by DOROTHY DODD

When the Southern states seceded in 1861, lighthouses and other prop-
erty belonging to the United States lighthouse establishment were seized and
their lights extinguished. By the end of April, Southern partisans had accom-
plished the extinguishment of all lights and the destruction or removal of
other aids to navigation from Chesapeake Bay to the Rio Grande with the
exception of the string of lights on the Florida coast from Jupiter Inlet to
Dry Tortugas.-
The Florida lighthouses remaining in Federal hands were those designed
to guide shipping around the Florida peninsula and consisted of the primary
seacoast lights at Jupiter Inlet, Cape Florida, Carysfort Reef, Dry Bank, Sand
Key, and Dry Tortugas, and the harbor lights at Key West and Garden Key.
Since Jupiter Inlet light was on the mainland and Cape Florida was relatively
easy of access by boat, it was not long until they, too, were extinguished.
"In August last," the Secretary of the Lighthouse Board wrote in his
annual report for 1861, "a band of lawless persons visited the Jupiter Inlet
light-house, on the coast of Florida, and removed therefrom the illuminating
apparatus. A few days afterwards, the same band visited the light at Cape
Florida and destroyed the illuminating apparatus."'
Materials for repair of the Cape Florida light were assembled as soon as
possible and sent to Key West, where they were stored until Federal control
of the light could be assured.* As soon as the war ended, an experienced
agent was sent to Key West with instructions "to use every exertion" to relight
the important light stations at Cape Florida and Jupiter Inlet.v Cape Florida
light was re-established on April 15, 1866; Jupiter Inlet light on June 28,
1866.s
The following letter, signed by three Southern patriots who comprised
the "band of lawless persons," tells how the lights were extinguished. It is
in the handwriting of James Paine and is not dated. Paine was probably the

TEQUESTA

James Paine who represented Brevard County in the House of Representatives
in 1871 and 1872 and was postmaster at St. Lucie in 1887.7 Nothing has been
ascertained about A. Oswald Lang and Francis A. Ivy. The manuscript is in
the office of the Secretary of State at Tallahassee.

To
His Excellency M. S. Perry
Governor of Florida
Sir -

We the undersigned residents of Indian River, believing it a solmen [sic]
duty of every Citizen, to try and serve his State and Country in whatever
capacity h6 may be most able, would in accordance to such feelings, report
to your Excellency, that we have taken the responsibility of putting out the
Lights at both Jupiter Inlet and Cape Florida, believing them to be of no use
or benefit to our Government, but on the contrary, of great importance to our
enemies.
We had felt the importance of such a measure for some time, thinking
some authorized Agent of our Government would be sent to perform it, but
finding no effort was made by either the Government or the Keeper of the
Light, we resolved to assume the responsibility ourselves, and report the
result to your Excellency, hoping that it may meet your approval. At
Jupiter we destroyed no property whatever, the Light being a revolving one
and of very costly make, we took away only enough of the machinery to make
it unserviceable.s There is a quantity of property belonging to the Light con-
sisting of Tools, machinery, Paints, oil &c which we have secured under lock
and Key.
At Cape Florida the Light being within the immediate protection of Key
West and almost indispensable at this time to the enemyes [sic] fleet, as well
as knowing it to be useless for us to try and hold it, we determined to damage
it so that it will be of no possible use to our enemies.
The Keepers at Cape Florida were armed, and instructed not to surren-
der the Light, only with their lives, the possession was gained however with-
out any resistance, owing to the complete manner in which our plans were
executed, we brought away the Lamps and Burners, and broke the Lens
Glasses.
The seizure and surrender was made at midnight of the 21st August,
while the two Keepers were in the Tower, and the Iron door below bolted and

DOROTHY DODD

locked on the inside-one of the party being aquainted [sic] with the Keeper
and knowing that he expected supplies from Key West daily, devised the plan
to get them down by telling them he had news for them from Key West,
which brought them both down, and as soon as the door was opened, we
secured them as prisoners. The party being small, and having only a small
Boat to return in, we concluded not to take them prisoners, they professing to
be strongly in favor of the South, although they had repeatedly boasted that
they would defend the Light to the last.
The Keeper of Jupier Light although professing to be with the South,
yet by his acts he falcified [sic] his professions-he was repeatedly urged by
his Assistant Mr. Lang to put out the Light, but refused to do so, and was
quite satisfied to receive pay and provisions from the U. S. Government. We
thought that he was not the proper person to be in such a responsible position,
and consequently turned him away. We brought away from the Cape a Sail
Boat, two Muskets complete two Colt Revolvers, and three lamps and burners
belonging to the Light, all of which is at Jupiter waiting your decision-the
arms captured will be much needed at Jupiter in case of an attack.
Mr. A. Oswald Lang the Asst Keeper resigned his position when he found
the Keeper Mr. Papy was intent on Keeping the Light burning, and is now in
charge of the light and property, and will be glad to receive instructions from
your Excllency [sic] in relation to his duty in this matter.
As it is most likely that the enemy will undertake to retalliate [sic] by
destroying the Light and property, we would suggest that a Guard be Sent to
protect it, or if not, instruct us to have the property removed to some safe
place.
We have addressed this report to your Excellency, thinking you the
proper person to give the information, and hoping our action will be ap-
proved, as our only desire was to serve our Country having performed a
journey of about 140 miles, 90 of it on foot, being exposed to a burning
Sun and drenching rains, and with a very scant allowance of food.
We are very Respectfully
Your Excellencies [sic] Most obt. Servants
James Paine
A. Oswald Lang
Francis A. Ivy
1 S. Doc. 2, 37 Cong., 2 sess. #1121, p. 204.
2 See list of lighthouses on the Florida coast in S. Doc. 2, 35 Cong., 2 sess. #979, pp.
416-419.

The Historical Marker Program
One historical marker has been prepared and dedicated by the Historical
Association of Southern Florida since those reported in the 1953 Tequesta.
Of the same design originally adopted when the marker program was
begun in 1952, the roadside marker was erected for the Association by the
Park Department of the City of Miami Beach in North Shore Park on the
ocean at 72nd Street and Collins Avenue, on the site of the Biscayne House of
Refuge. Dedication was Sunday, March 7, 1954.
The principal address was delivered by Captain S. P. Swicegood, Com-
mander of the Seventh Coast Guard District. Mayor Harold Shapiro of Miami
Beach accepted the marked for the city, after it was unveiled by Adam G.
Adams, President of the Historical Association of Southern Florida, and
E. M. Hancock, president of the Miami Beach Pioneers. Oliver Griswold,
Chairman of the Association's Historical Sites and Markers Committee, was
master of ceremonies.
The Coast Guard Auxiliary executed an impressive demonstration of an
air-sea rescue operation by hoisting a simulated injured person into a heli-
copter hovering over a boat anchored off the beach.
The Miami Beach High School Band provided music for the ceremony.
The Coast Guard exhibited life-saving equipment.

BISCAYNE HOUSE OF REFUGE
Here stood the Biscayne House of Refuge to save survivors of
shipwrecks from the perils of the wilderness shore. After every storm,
the keeper of the refuge and his family searched the beach for casta-
ways to furnish them food, clothing and shelter, and a safe return
to civilization.
Established in 1876, by the Life Saving Service, a predecessor
of the U. S. Coast Guard, the refuge remained 'Semper Paratus' until
modern settlement replaced the lonely jungle.
Other houses of refuge built the same year on the then desolate
coast at Ft. Lauderdale, Orange Grove (Delray Beach), Gilbert's
Bar (Stuart), and Indian River Inlet (Ft. Pierce).
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA 1954.

TEQUESTA

Contributors

JAMES W. COVINGTON is professor of History at the University of Tampa.
For his Ph.D. program he specialized in the study of the American Indian at
Oklahoma University. Logically enough, since he has lived in Tampa he has
been studying the Florida Indians.

JACK P. DALTON was born in Alabama, studied at Stetson University,
and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and did his graduate study at
the University of Florida. The topic of his doctoral dissertation was "A His-
tory of Florida Baptists". Chaplain Major Dalton was recalled to active
military service, served for a time in Japan, and is now stationed in Utah.

DOROTHY DODD is Librarian of the State Library at Tallahassee. She has
been a regular contributor of articles on Florida History in the Florida
Historical Quarterly as well as Tequesta. See Tequesta number VIII, 1948
for her "Jacob Housman of Indian Key".

GEORGE C. OSBORN is Associate Professor of Social Sciences at the Uni-
versity of Florida. He has done research and directed student studies in
southern history and Florida history. Co-author Dalton's doctoral dissertation
was done under his direction. Dr. Osborn's latest publication is John Sharpe
Williams, a biography published by the Louisiana State University Press.

AMES W. WILLIAMS is an attorney in the offices of the Federal Trade
Commission, Washington, D. C. His avocation is history. He is the author of
Stephen Crane: War Correspondent, and of numerous articles dealing chiefly
with the Civil War and the War of 1898. He is co-author with Vincent
Starret of Stephen Crane: A Bibliography.

F. PAGE WILSON writes again of the Miami with which he has grown up.
He loves his city and feels that he understands her. When he is critical he is
chiding her for not living up to his hopes and expectations for her. See
Tequesta Number XII, "We Chose the Sub-Tropics".

LIST OF MEMBERS
EXPLANATORY NOTE: The Society provides several classes of membership.
Regular or "Annual" members at three dollars a year make up the great major-
ity of the list. For those who wish to contribute more for the promotion of the
Association's work, the other classes of membership provide the opportunity,
and the publication of their names in the proper category of membership is a
means of recognition. "Sustaining" members pay five dollars a year, "Patrons"
pay ten dollars a year, "Donors" pay twenty-five dollars a year, "Contributors"
pay fifty dollars a year, "Sponsors' pay one hundred dollars a year, and "Bene-
factors" contribute two hundred and fifty dollars or more a year.
This printed roster is made up of the names of those persons and institutions
that have paid dues in 1953 or in 1954 before September first, when this material
must go to press. Those joining after this date in 1954 will have their names
included in the 1955 roster. The symbol ** indicates founding member and the
symbol indicates charter member.